Death is Faithful

जिंदगी तो बेव़फा हैं एक दिन ठुकरायेगी

मौत मेहबूबा हैं अपने साथ लेकर जायेगी

मर के जीने की अदा जो दुनियां को सिखलायेगा 

वो मुकद्दर् का सिकंदर, जान-ए-मन कहलायेगा

These are immortal words by the great Indian lyricist Anjaan.  The crude translation is

Life is unfaithful, one day it will leave you

Death is a lover, it will take you with it 

The one who will teach the world

How to live after dying

will be called the king of destiny, my dear"

This is not my first post on death. Unfortunately, i

have seen death from very close quarters in the last few years. I have earlier written about death and my contradictions with life and death. 

This post is about a bird , a female Asian koel which took its last breath in our house in full presence of my family and couple of friends. It was sad to see her die. But it was inevitable and her time was up. 

It was 10:30 AM on a sunday and as usual we were late for a function and were hurrying up. As i drove my car past the neighbourhood, my wife  spotted a strange hurt bird on the road. I did not bother much about it. 

We returned in the afternoon and couple of my friends were at home. As we were chatting on the road, we spotted the bird again. It was a female Asian Koel. She was in a very bad condition. We tried to give her some water . But she refused. 

We did not know what do about it. We did not want to see her die. We did not want to leave her on the road. So my friend picked it up and got it to our house. I called my cousin who is an ornithologist. We sent her the pictures . I asked my friends on facebook on what i could do about it. 

Unfortunately, we learnt that the bird was in her last stages and had given up food and water. 

However, my fried tried to give her some water but she violently refused. The fact is, Asian koel birds in their last stages give up water and food and wait for their inevitable call. They know when their life mission is over and will wait for their lover (death) without food and water. 

She took her last breath as we stood in our little garden silently observing her. We had made friends with her and let her go in 4 hours. It was a strange feeling. 

As the lyricist Anjaan said, Our Koel left food and water for her lover (Mehabooba) . It is so strange that the hurt bird was on the road all day and we ignored her. The guilt of ignoring her will always haunt me.

When we came back in the afternoon she was waiting for our nursing. She finally took her last breath in our house. Probably this is what is called destiny. 

Our friend thought us two priceless lessons. We must not have ignored her when we first saw her dying on the road. It is so sad that we were more interested in attending a ceremony leaving an old and hurt life on the road. 

The exit from the world should be graceful. By design or default, our little friend thought us the importance of leaving a graceful footprint before leaving the world. RIP my Friend. 

Generation Gap

What is generation gap ? Getting a 10 minutes lecture (sermon) for being 5 minutes late for an appointment from a senior citizen (a very senior engineer) is generation gap. 

This post is about a brilliant engineer and equally witty gentleman by name H.Jayakumar . The title may not be the best suited for this post , however this is the best i can think over. 

I was supposed to meet Mr Jayakumar (68 years) at 6:15 AM at his residence on Saturday 4 April,2015. The appointment was fixed on 2 April at his office. He had given me a map for his house and later in the day had sent me an e-mail with the co-ordinates. 

This was my third meeting with Mr Jayakumar. My First meeting was in a training program couple of weeks back. I was impressed by the energy in his talk and the passion he had for engineering. The 68 year old gentleman had arrived at the training hall at 9:20 AM for the 10:00 AM lecture by public transport from his house 22 kms away. He mentioned in the class that he had never been late to his work in his career as an engineer of four decades. Mr Jayakumar had retired as the joint director of Central power research institute (CPRI) in 2008. 

I was so impressed by his talk that i requested him to  perform a earth resistivity test in one of my sites. He readily agreed and my third meeting was fixed at his residence on 4 April at 6:15 AM. Mr Jayakumar an orthodox brahmin had finished his morning ablutions  and sandhyavandane (Prayers to the sun god) and was ready by 6:00 AM. He called me at 6:00 AM to find out my coordinates. When i reached at 6:20 AM, he very politely acknowledged my indiscipline. 

Nevertheless, we reached the site at 7:30 AM. True to his passion, he was immediately on the job. He took out his instruments , drove the pegs himself, took the measurements and his job was done by 7:45 AM. He explained the tests, interpreted the results and packed up by 8:00 AM. 

Mr Jayakumar raised in the ranks in CPRI out of his knowledge, skill, hard work and competency. As he mentioned many times during his lecture, being just a diploma in electrical engineering, he rose to the rank of joint director and was instructing Phd and masters degree holders. No doubt, Jayakumar is very sound in his engineering

Mr Jayakumar reminded me of my dad. I had earlier written in one of the posts that with many domestic reposibilities and daily chores to attend for, my dad was never late for any appointment domestic or professional. In fact he was well before time.  With no domestic chores to attend for, with all possible facilities , with most modern gadgets to track my time, i am seldom on time to any appointment. 

With all possible tools , i do not think i am any close to the engineering skill that my dad had. With no sophisticated tools, with no land line phone let alone a mobile phone, my father was manager par excellence. I do not think i can ever attain his level of managerial skills inspite of half a dozen computing devices at my disposal and almost a supercomputer in the pocket.  This is generation gap...