Anna Karenina

Just a few minutes back I finished Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’. I read the book after reading ‘War and Peace’ and after reading that Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina as the only novel he wrote obviously because he liked it. Though both his books ‘war and peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina’ are very popular, I liked the former. After reading ‘Anna Karenina’ I wondered why the book was titled thus when Anna’s account is lesser as compared to Levin. Like in ‘War and Peace’ there is elaborate description of parties that used to take place in Tsarian Russia, but I found the book rather dull in the beginning. I loved it towards the end when Anna starts loosing her sanity, she starts living in a fear that Vronsky, the man for whom she left her husband, her son and became a subject of despise to the society has stopped loving her. She puts question and answers the questions on behalf of Vronsky herself. It is such a wonderfully written. One cannot remain without feeling pity for the woman. It’s obviously the story of love if Anna is to be considered but as in War and Peace, Tolstoy ends up with his philosophy about life, religion and the whole world.
While reading ‘War and Peace’, I thought the author is sharing so many things, sufferings of his own through his character Pierre. I was so surprised that what I thought happened to be true. It is written that Pierre is a portrait of Tolstoy himself along with his alter-ego Prince Andrew. Now after reading ‘Anna Karenina’, I am again thinking the character Levin might share resemblances with the author. Even I could associate myself with Levin, the way he thought about death, about religion, about his doubtfulness of his own position if he could change the world.
When Anna leaves her husband, I wondered if that was right thing to do. Isn’t that a cheating, infidelity? Has anyone right to ruin others life. May be it depends upon the circumstances. The instincts of man surprise himself at times owing to the fact that we are selfish by nature. To observe things as a spectator is completely different than actually experiencing the arduous circumstances. It was a pity for Anna who saves the matrimony of her brother in the beginning of the book ruins her own married life and eventually ruining herself. At one end her husband and her son suffers while at others Vronsky suffers for loving her, for fighting the world with might which turns completely against him. Anna a self-confident, lively woman all of a sudden is pushed into never ending suffering.
I have read many books, watched many movies I have thoroughly enjoyed in the beginning but have been let down at the end. When we read a book or watch a movie, we want the zeal to be on the rise. I feel I found many good books insipid because of the way they ended, while there are books that have been dull towards the beginning but highly engaging as it approaches its end. Personally I like books that engages me from its very beginning till its end however if such books are not available I would go for books that might be a little dull in the beginning but progresses eventually. Many people dump a book after reading few pages because they don’t find the book interesting, I on the other hand rarely dump a book once I get hold of it, so for me I like the books which progresses as one turns pages. Anna Karenina is one of such book. The last few pages that deal with Anna’s confusion, restlessness makes the book exquisite.
Though a wonderful tale, I found it dull at times and it was not something I would have repented for not reading.

The question of identity

The streets bore the same rush, the season’s Sun was high above the head of the passers by and at distant heavy clouds seemed to be looking for a proper time to veil the Sun. There was no hint the clouds will succeed soon, but then there were sounds in the sky, back in our childhood days when the sky roared we said God’s stomach was upset. This thought left a smile with tints of embarrassment. But these innocent things are what make our childhood so special. There was more traffic in the road which suggested the fuels may have been available more easily. In a police truck the Tibetan refugees chanted the slogans of free Tibet waving the flag of free Tibet. I am not a stern believer in patriotism; to me it sounds just propaganda. But for the Tibetans the fight was more for the identity than the voice for patriotism. To being swept away from one’s culture, to be cut from one’s root is unbearable. During the days of conflict here in my own country, there was a man who lived in our neighborhood who earned his livelihood selling fruits in push cart while his wife roasted maize under the scorching sun. I felt pity for them not only for them for every other person who had to engage is such a tiring and painstaking manual labor. World is not just for everyone. Later this man came to work as a laborer when we were building the fence wall. One evening I overheard him talking with my father, he was from remote district of the country where he had plenty of land, a house of his own and herds of cattle. He was well off with the paddy, wheat and milk he sold but then he was exiled by the Maoists. He said his only fault was he worked hard and even his luck favored and he managed to earn a good fortune. He said the local rebels held every well off men as the oppressor and they claimed their property as the property of the people. He had three children, a daughter and two sons. When he fled into the city he stayed at his relatives’ place but he could not stay at somebody else’s home so moved from there. He said he had three servants including a shepherd and two domestic help but there he was working as a wage earner himself. It was terrible for me. The victims of wars are not the ones who are directly involved but those who come between the warring factions. His two sons were enrolled in a government school while he could not afford to send his daughter to school. Whatever be the situations the first victims are always the women. I wondered why didn’t he send one son and daughter to school. More than that I believe government schools are cheap and till some grade they do not even take fees. The daughter was deprived from education because she had to assist her mother in roasting the maize. He had lost his identity. He said back in his village they called him ‘Thula ghare karki dai’ (Karki brother with the big house) but here every body called him ‘Mote Ram’ (Fat Ram). He said in his village no body dared to take his name and here he had to bear with the insults, reproach and hatred. He said his heart wreak when he remembered his village, his home, his cattle, however far he was from his home and his village he had left his heart back there. To leave a place by choice is different from being exiled from that place. Usually a place where one lives is not a cluster of few buildings, trees, fields etc. it’s a place which has given him/her the identity. At Kathmandu, I always felt the place was worse, it is crowded, it stinks, its noisy and heartless. When I went to Trishuli which was peaceful, in the lap of green hills with the mighty Trishuli river snaking its way to the sea hundreds of miles away I missed Kathmandu. This is the place I was born, this is the place where my parents lived, this is the place where I went to school, this is the place where I learnt to speak. I complained about Kathmandu all the time when I was here but when I was away from the place and anyone spoke ill about the Kathmandu I used to get defensive. Yet Trishuli and Kathmandu belongs to same country. Even when I was in Kathmandu I was in Nepal and when I was in Trishuli I was still in Nepal. I wondered how would the refugees feel when they are living on the mercy of another country, where no one knows there identity, wherever they go they encounter strange faces, people with strange culture, who speak strange language and who treat you like a stranger. Mind it they are not on vacation but it’s rather a kind of arrest. They do not know where their folks are, what has happened to the home where they had imprinted their first footsteps, where they had started witnessing the world, where the sun woke them up every morning, where the moon tucked them to bed. They couldn’t measure their land in their feet back at home and here they are confined to handful of earth. Somewhere someone is crushing their culture, their identity, their home.

"A Thousand Splendid Suns", a wonderful story

The last book of Khaled Hosseini ‘The kite runner’ had brought lumps on my throat while his ‘A thousand splendid suns’ gave the final stroke. Last evening sitting in my low bed with one hand holding the book, I saw the papers wet, it had brought tears. I had felt the pain a little earlier but when I finally couldn’t stop I didn’t know. I didn’t know when did the tears roll but there they were in the book. I realized the cup of tea which had been brought earlier had become cold, it had entered my room an hour earlier. I do not remember who had brought it, I only remembered I had asked him/her to put the tea in the table near by. I had been reading the book from Wednesday morning and couldn’t postpone the pages to be turned; I had finished it in two days.
I hadn’t picked the book intentionally. I had in fact gone in search of another book and when the seller said he didn’t have that book, I just took a walk in the store to fall upon something interesting where I picked Khaled Hosseini. I read the reviews and it was probably the book I had yearned to read.
The book is about an Afgani child Mariam, who grows into a girl and a woman, its story of her struggle, of her hardships. She establishes a special relationship with another girl Laila. The story is also about Laila and her hardships. It shows the picture of a country battered in war against the monarch, then against the Russians, against the Mujahiddins and finally against the Taliban. It tells a story of country where the life has no value, right has no value and where women are cursed and loathed. How in the name of religion, the Sharia law forbids women to get education, to walk freely, to get a job even to speak in public and to talk with strangers.
Had I been a woman I might have cried lot earlier but it was towards the end I broke. The exploitation of women, her treatment like an animal is painful. When one thinks it might be the last incident where the heart moans and pains, the incidents that come later become harder and more painful. The sacrifices a woman makes will leave the reader appreciating the greatness of woman being. “How much can she tolerate?” we keep on asking. “How low can a man go?” to worsen the life of his wife or any other female part leaves us torn apart.
After reading the book, the face of Mariam, her sacrifices denied to leave me. I sat almost an hour, staring the ceiling of my room as I lied on my back in my bed. I believe the women still live in situations worse than described in the novel, her greatness is more than shown in the book. Mariam will be with me for a real long time with me. I wouldn’t have regretted if this book had cost me more than thousand. A thousand splendid suns is a splendid story. Those who like reading will love this and for those who do not like reading it will spring love for books and to read more.

An opinion on recent strike in medical sector

There was a breaking news yesterday evening reconciliation between the Government and the medical council. So after two days of closure of all services except the emergency one the hospitals and other medical outfits will start full operation from today. Families who were suffering because of unavailability of medical services must have taken a sigh of relief. Newspapers showed ailing people lying helpless before hospitals and nursing homes while doctors turned deaf ears to their plea and to their pain. Yet again the choice of a fatal strike won. If you have a backing of a group and are ready for a crippling strike you can get anything. In days to come we might get chance to hear and see strike by some prisoners union to excuse all their guilt and set them free. Government assured the doctors and medical workers of security and right which it will obviously forget in the time to come and the union of medical workers whose income suffered in two days of strike called it off. Everyone is so resolute to prove their power, their importance by warning others by showing how can they cripple others life with their power.
Government always works in haste and without any proper investigation it keeps distributing assurances and compensation whoever demands it for whatever reasons. Tomorrow a union of dacoits will demonstrate to secure their rights to raid the houses of people for money because it’s the profession they have chosen for themselves. They will be unyielding in their demands and will call for ‘bandh’ warning the public that whoever chooses not to abide by their diktat will be shot dead. Government will call the agitating dacoits in a talking table and come out with a proud press release saying ‘they have been able to convince the group of dacoits to drop down their demand to loot hundred homes to ninety five homes. To their other demands one of their representatives will be sworn in into the constituent assembly and amendment will be brought in the interim constitution to secure their rights.’
This week one marquee refused to be pulled off from international news agencies. A Jamaican immigrant Esmin Green died after hospital employees at New York’s Kings County Hospital ignored her when she slumped out of the chair and began convulsing on the floor. Immediate action was taken against the employees by the hospital and against the hospital by the state. Had it been here the hospital will come out in defense of its employees ignoring the price of a lost life. The state would have completely ignored the incident to provide enough room to repeat same mistake again and again in the future.
The whole series of events transpired when a patient died while being operated. If I heard it right it was an operation of a stone in gall bladder which is presumably one of the minor cases and this is the first time I have heard where a patient has died during the removal of gall bladder stone. Obviously this irked the relatives who blamed the doctors for irresponsibility and carelessness. They resorted to vandalism of the nursing home’s properties. And as always it called for another bandh. The group of medical practitioners without promising to probe into the incident called for strike and brought all medical services to halt.
Without a probe one cannot confirm whose fault is this. Many times families create scene in expectation of compensation. Its not for the concern for the deceased but the greed for money people take things into their hand. There are many complications in a disease and who knows the patient had complicated issue which caused his death. Otherwise no medical personal will kill their patient, but there have been reports of their carelessness. Time and again we read cases of scissors, towels and other equipments being left inside the body of the patient during the process of operation but I have never heard a punishment being given to the perpetrators. Medical personals are from affluent group and in country where everything can be settled under table I can only smell fishy things.
An active monitoring committee should be formed protecting the rights of the concerned parties. The government which agreed to the medical union in haste should have also assured the public that there will be a probe and the culprit will be brought to justice. In the mean time there should be a legal barring against the calling off of services to which the interest of general public is closely linked. Of course the protection of medical practitioners should also be ensured.