Exhortation or cliche -2

As lines of a popular song go-

May God be in your mind
May God be in your heart
May God be always looking over your shoulders

God is in my mind,
In my thoughts all the time
God in my words,
God is my life
God is in my heart,
In the love that I share
God in all I do,
God is my prayerGod looks over me,
God looks after you
God is in me,
God is in you

My earlier blog that had the similar title as this one was received rather well. Encouraged by the response and looking to the reaffirmation of my belief and that too by none other than our very own ex president and the Missile man of india, the most revered Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, I felt encouraged to write part 2.

In the course of a talk, Dr Kalam narrates an incident relating to his friend, an eminent cardiac surgeon of Baroda, Dr Shailesh Mehta. Dr Mehta in his 69th year was as busy as ever, with patients needing up to 1 month wait to get his appointment. Only junior doctors would see the report first and refer a doable case to Dr Mehta so that his precious time was not getting squandered away on gone cases. This was the case of a 6 years old child who had her heart totally clogged. The battery of junior doctors had declined the case but on fervent plea by the child’s parents referred it to Dr Mehta for his final opinion. Dr Mehta reiterated what junior doctors had said – that it was a hopeless case. He said that surgery would be very complex and chances of success were barely 30%. Without surgery the girl could survive for a few months and given the luck even a few years. Parents decided to take chance and the girl was admitted for surgery on the destined day. Dr Mehta wearing his sterile uniform saw the small child lying on the operation table. He asked the child whether she was worried. The girl said she wasn’t but she had a question to ask? She asked the Doctor, “ My parents tell me that a child’s heart is the abode of God. When you cut open my heart, please do tell me how the good looks like”? Dr Mehta told Dr Kalam that he was then caught in a double dilemma. As it was, chances of survival were only 30% and if at all the surgery was to be successful, he would have to do the impossible task of explaining how the God looked like to the child!

As the child was cut open, the case appeared to be more hopeless than it was imagined to be. 45 minutes into surgery, the flow of the blood into heart stopped completely and Dr Mehta decided upon calling off the surgery and informing the parents about the bad news of the child’s death. His mind strayed into the child’s query and he started sobbing! Then a miracle happened, suddenly a junior doctor informed Dr Mehta about the start of blood flow into child’s heart. The surgery went on for more than 6 hours and at the end of it, child had a heart that would last her a lifetime.

Dr Kalam sums up the above incident beautifully. He says that from then onwards, Dr Mehta who had performed thousands of surgeries and had full confidence in his skills decided to put a picture of God in his OT and to commence his surgery only after paying obeisance to almighty.

The story is not about miracles or spreading religion or blind faith. It’s about the good teachings or “samskaras” that we receive from our parents and gurus that have the effect of “culturing” us. The sheer purity of the thought makes it a powerful one raising it above all the cliches and lip service that we receive at later stages of our lives.

Let’s bow to Dr Kalam and Dr Mehta for this is what we need today – to skill our selves the best and have faith in our heart that an invisible power is with us to guide us through in this life’s journey.