Random Musings

SO you thought that if Australia, India or Pakistan were not in the finals, it could not be much of a game, right? I thought so too. Inspite of it being a Saturday, I made no serious attempt to reach home early to catch more of the game. I reached when West Indies were struggling to stay in the game. Only Chanderpaul remained between England and victory. I was hoping for a Windies win (since then I have met so many people and found NONE to have wanted England to win!). They are a colourful lot. I like guys like Gayle, Sarawan and the Windies’ Dravid, Chanderpaul. And we all hate the Poms, for no particular reason.. perhaps, just the hangover of the East India company’s days from centuries back! So I was feeling bad that West Indies seemed like they were heading for a loss. Was also wondering if this will finally be England’s first victory in a multi-nation tournament (for being the originators of cricket, they have not won the world cup ever!). But like we always hope as long as Dravid is around, so I hoped on, as Chanderpaul seemed like hanging in there. The target was not large and if they got close, they would have a chance. Perhaps Ricardo Powell would smash out 40-50 runs, if they got that close.

But then, Powell and Chanderpaul both got out, and it was 147 for 8. I started switching channels and kept reverting to the game only to check if it was over yet or not. But then the unbelievable started happening.

Bradshaw and Brown batted so well. They middled everything (so much for the devil in the pitch). They batted with utmost composure and had absolutely no problems at all. No playing and missing, no random shots, no real ‘luck’ factor. They did not run like madmen.. they took singles and twos and these were always very well run with no risk at all. They appeared to be in command like two accomplished batsmen, in form. Slowly but surely, they kept running out the overs and did not get out. And kept making runs, to keep the target always comfortably in sight. The perfect chase of this total, as a coach would have told batsmen to do.. only these guys were nos. 9 and 10, and no great batsmen in terms of international reputation.

They saw out the part time bowlers like Trestowick and Collingwood, without much problem. With almost 70 to get since they got together, the English captain did not think of calling his only specialist spinner to bowl, as he figured that where the top batsmen have not survived the pacers and the seamers, what are these two going to do. At most, there will be a little delay, but nobody can deny us victory now, he must have figured. And so he did not think of getting Giles, the spinner, on, when WI was in the 140s to 160s. As the Windies inched closer to their target of 217, it was getting too late to give a first bowl to a slow bowler. If at that late stage, the bowler bowled like a 20 run over, it would be all over then. So he lost the opportunity to bring the spinner on. Whether it would have made any difference or not is hard to say. These guys were batting so well, and the pitch was clearly benefiting the seam bowlers, so the spinner may have made little difference. Except that we would never know now, as Vaughan did not put him on at all.

Gough had a bad day and he was easily seen through by these two guys. Desperate to get a break, Vaughan brought on his star bowler Harmisson who had 3 overs left to bowl. And Harmisson gave his all to the ball. He bowled his fastest of the game, including the fastest ball of the tournament, at around 97 mph. It was a vicious yorker to boot. And guess what.. it was aniticipated well, and it was dug out most creditably! No problem at all! Vaughan chose to bowl Harmission through.. and they saw out his 3 overs, and rejoiced a bit. Then Vaughan brought on his second big weapon Flintoff, who had also got big wickets earlier in the day. These two batters put that extra level of concentration and saw Flintoff through as well, with little problem. And at that point with about 3-4 overs to go, the batters pumped the air. They knew that they had seen off the biggest challenges.

In between, while all this action was going on, the light kept deteriorating. Ultimately the umpires had no choice but to offer the light to the batsmen, and they could have chosen to go into the pavilion at that point of time. It was about 170-180 or so, at that time. But these number 9 and 10 batsmen said NO to the offer. They chose to stay on the crease, and face Harmisson hammering away hard and fast at them, even as the light was so poor.

With those kinds of guts, they really shook the English guys out, and ultimately managed to take the team through to victory, with more than an over to spare.

Awesome victory!

For the first time, I got so involved in the game, even though India was not playing. A wicket could have put England close to victory. And it requires only one ball to get a wicket. I had goosebumps and my heart was in my mouth, as I saw these two guys battle away. And they did not lose a wicket nor did they give a chance. A thoroughly professional approach that one would expect from top class batsmen!

Found out later that Brown has been recently reinstated into the team, as WK, and that he is a very mature player and captain of Barbados. It appears that he also has a role to play in motivating the younger players of the team, in general. And he was there at the crease, guiding his team to victory. Bradshaw is also from Barbados and a good friend of Brown.

In the post match interview, Brown said that he wanted to stay with Chanderpaul first, as he had all confidence in Chanderpaul. But when Chanderpaul got out and Bradshaw came in, he said that he had confidence in Bradshaw as well, as he knows his capabilities well. And how true it turned out to be.

Bradshaw was the Man of the Match, and in his interview he said that they aimed to see off Harmisson and Flintoff, as they knew that thereafter, they had a good chance. He also mentioned that when the light was offered to them, they realised that the momentum was with them, so why go in, and lose that momentum. Moreover, the ball was still quite visible, and so they chose to stay on the wicket. What a fantastic decision, it was!

If I say that Indians have a lot to learn from these guys, it will be a question of only one game to judge from. But the performance was something that all players in the world could take inspiration from. Hats off to the Windies…

How happy they looked after the game, how much fun they were having on the ground, dancing and rolling over, and doing all kinds of stunts. The typical Caribbean free spirit of old. Good to see that again…

It was the Janmashtami day – a holiday for me. At around 11:30 pm, I got a call from AD, one of our senior employees. He was speaking from a private nursing home, where his mother had been admitted earlier that day. The doctor there had informed him that he should take his mother to Sion Hospital. That was because she had not passed urine since afternoon, and perhaps she may need to be put on dialysis, which facility was not available at that private hospital. AD and his mother have both been very wary about going to a public hospital like Sion Hospital, so it was not something that they wanted to do (will put more about AD and his hard life, later in another posting). So he called me to ask what he should do. At 11:30 pm, if a doctor in the private hospital recommends that a patient be moved to a large hospital, I presumed that it would be with good reason, and I conveyed my opinion that he must follow that advise. As he and his brother were alone, I offered to go to the hospital and see if I could help them. He was happy to have me go there, and which I did.

Thus, it was around midnight that I found myself, at the casualty department of the Sion Hospital, one of the largest public hospitals in Mumbai. And I was there from then till about 4:30 am that morning. And what I saw during this time, and what I experienced is what I intend to share here.

As mentioned earlier, it was Janmashtami day and there are these large number of groups who go out to do the pyramid structures for breaking the matki. And that causes several injuries. Either that, or perhaps there is anyway, an average large load of patients at a hospital like Sion. But the fact was that there were just so many patients who kept coming in, at the hospital.

There is this one doctor at the gate of the casualty department. He was late thirtyish in age. And over the next 2-3 hours that I kept seeing him, he did not rest for a moment. He was on his feet, running around, rushing from here and there, and trying to ensure that he kept the incoming patients moving in. He was wasting no time, and his energy levels had to be seen to be believed. He was the most surprising vision for me. He was alone at that desk there.

Inside the casualty department, there was a serious resource crunch, of many kinds. The phone there did not work too well. Had to be banged every now and then, to work. This was the phone that was being used to call interns and registrar doctors, amongst other things. It took an extra effort each time, to be used. They ran out of specific forms that they use for some purposes. They started to use ordinary plain paper instead. When doctors were given these legal sized plain papers, they (I saw more than 3 doctors follow this procedure) folded the paper in a particular way, used scissors and cut the sheets. At least 1 minute wasted each time they had to do this. I had no idea why the doctors needed to do such basic stuff. And why they took so much effort with the scissors and all! Then they needed to use a carbon paper. There was this one very used and abused carbon paper sheet that kept going around. Before using the carbon, they had to pin the sheets together. And do you think the pins were easy to find at the pin cushion?? Of course not. The pin was always hard to find, and docs had to keep searching for these. Staplers or stapler pins, of course, were just not around. It was so crazy that doctors had to waste so much time, in such dumb things.

All kinds of patients came in. Few men who had taken bit too much of illicit liquor, and whose wives had brought them in. There were others who had been injured in the janmashtami celebrations. Few small kids. Even one pregnant woman who actually delivered right outside the casualty ward. The common thread running through was one of poverty. The doctors had to keep mentioning approximate cost of the medications or the treatment (the actual medical costs are extremely subsidised here; also medicines bought at the local store are a lot cheaper than those outside), which was causing great deal of discomfort with the people who came with the patients. Many times, the numbers appeared just too large (as 2000/- CT scan cost is very subsidised, but it could well be the month’s salary for the person concerned, and it would go off, in one shot!) to be affordable! There were persons who were just neighbours, people from the same village staying together in some hutment in Mumbai, but not really relatives. And for such an accompanying person, to arrange larger amounts of cash, was asking for too much. Considering that he was also in the very struggling stage himself. There were at least two such cases.

The plight of the individuals, especially with regards to the finanical burden was unimaginable, and really shocking.

Coming back to the casualty ward, they did not have water fountains handy. A patient’s attendant had to walk a while and get water for the patient! Ward boys were few and when they went off with a patient, say to take the patient to the ICU, then the ward boy would disappear for a while and no one would be around. If a patient had to be moved from a bed to the stretcher, it had to be done by the patient’s relatives, as such. There was no “bai” at that time. So when AD’s mother attempted to pass urine, it was left to AD to pick up the pot from the corner and give it to her. No one else to help him. And the stretchers were also disappearing and hard to find. Essentially everywhere time would be wasted to arrange all these!

The casualty ward was air conditioned and quite cool, at least.

Being a big hospital, things are all over the place and take time to get done. Like the window for paying the small fees that they charge, is away, and not well labelled. Hard to find it at that time of night. The sonography unit was on first floor. The ward assigned to AD’s mother was far away from there. Just so much time was wasted in going from one place to another.

In the ward, there were large number of patients. There were also stray dogs and kittens, INSIDE the ward! It took so much time for the doctor to get to the casualy ward, even after we had got the patient in there.

At 3 am, she passed away. We waited for a while to see if they would do the formalities quickly. At 4:30 am, I realised that a post morte=m was inevitable and would take some time. I left from there at that time, then. As it turns out, with all the paper work and formality, by the time they were able to get the body, it was about 10 am the day after! Almost 31 hours after the patient expired.

All in all, it was shocking, apalling, and scary as well.. !