A lot is wrought through prayer than we sometimes tend to imagine

Hospital 7 Hills , Mumbai           Feb  21,  2012           Tue  8 : 51 PM

A lot is wrought through prayer than we sometimes tend to imagine. Your dedicated prayers have given me the strength to overcome many hurdles in life, and for that I am truly grateful. The body listens to your words and feelings. It obeys and instructs other sections too, then finally an overall improvement occurs and soon we are back on our feet. This miracle, this gift from all of you is the most precious, and I promise to guard it to the best of my ability.

A shower in the morning avoiding all the intricately placed 'kites' and needles and wires, can become arduous and one that involves great calisthenics. But the effect is astonishing. It is almost life giving in its nature. It is natural then that normalcy approaches rapidly and one hopes that it shall be soon. The course of injections and medications need the services of the 'central line'. Once that is removed, many hurdles shall become clear and resolved. A few more days is what I look at and then shall begin the long convalescence. Perhaps of some months.

 

There is a strange withdrawal symptom  that begins to creep in before a 'discharge' from the hospital environment. Suddenly the dependency on the staff, the facility and attendance medically which operates automatically through doctor advise and instruction shall come to a halt. The gentle care and smiling attention of the nurses shall create a void when away from it. The regular and short at call doctors on standby at every indication of discomfort shall stop, and most of the battle shall be with yourself and your repaired body to deal with. We never wish for anyone to be in such circumstances when they may have to go through what generally, patients go through, but fact is one can never safely admit that they shall perennially be guarded from it.

Pray it may never happen to any of us or anyone ..

Modern medical care has made such massive progress that it is unimaginable how the times of 1982 and the times of 2012 differ from each other. The entire effort, as one who has been a 'victim' of both eras, is so remarkable that the ailments, at least in my case have offered better and easier care, as opposed to those that put patients in unavoidable pain. Science has constantly tried to make things easier as it were. Devices and gadgets have and are being constantly manufactured and thought of to improve conditions, and such a boon that is.

Not just in the field of medicine, but in all other vocations, it is being attempted of how the suffering can be reduced, how what was earlier done manually is now executed by machines that run to well tested and efficient working systems designed my humans to assist humans. This service to humanity is beyond praise and gratitude. Computers have been constructed to think by themselves. But they do not actually think by themselves. Mankind designed it in a manner that if offers services that seem to express that they are thinking by themselves.

That famous scene in '2001 – a Space Odyssey' when HAL the computer decides to go against the command of its own operator was a frightening example of what was going to come in the future. It was not the computer that decided, it was human programmed to such degree. Its death scene therefore was one of the most poignant cinematic moments, in recent times and one that established the huge genius of its maker Stanley Kubrik. It is remarkable how some of us are constantly thinking of bettering our lives for us. It is a boon. Though many conservative and conventional thoughts, do disagree and lament the absence of what prevailed in their times. It is the way the world has worked.

The human brain has not been matched yet with its speed of operation by any computer so far. Some years ago they said a third of the speed of the brain has been achieved, and soon more shall follow. What would really happen when you have a machine that works to the speed, or past it. I wonder. Whatever the result, what is reassuring is that the fact that it shall remain an invention of the human. In a sense then are we saying that the human shall go past itself ?

I remember driving to Jaisalmer for the shooting of 'Reshma aur Shera' when we learnt of the first moon landing by a human, and suddenly all the romance of poetry that had symbolized itself with this terrestrial ethereal body up in the skies, seemed invaded. Will we see or experience other planetary invasions in our lifetime ? Perhaps our grandchildren may … you never know !!

 

Love to all ..

Amitabh Bachchan