Photobucket had recently changed their policy and now all the images from my 650+ blog posts are disabled. I am slowly editing them by moving my images to my own server at AWS, but it will take time. In case there is a particular old post you want to see the images of, kindly drop me a mail at mizohican@gmail.com and I'll keep that at a high priority. Thank you.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Chp 550. A swine flu scare


Pune business trip, Feb 2015.

As I was wheeled into the emergency room of the closest hospital from office (even though I insisted I could walk), I could see nurses and hospital attendants around me putting on masks as they cautiously approached me.

I was shivering from cold, along with fever and a persistent cough I was having for a couple of weeks.

All I could hear were people speaking in Marathi, except the occasional word “H1N1” that I managed to pick up. My hair stood up every time I heard that word, but guess I was shivering too much to be bothered with then. After all, in my head, I assumed I was only having a routine fever.

Then came the bombardment of questions. As they laid me down on the cold hospital bed covered in that dull and depressing white sheet, masked medics surrounded me and asked me a barrage of questions - “How long have you been coughing?”, “Do you have a running nose?”, “Do you have loose motion?”, “Are you experiencing any pain in your head or muscle joints?”, “Do you feel nauseous?”, “Why are you so handsome?”…

I answered all their questions to the best of my abilities, and before I knew it, there I was, hooked up to various IV drips wearing a mask in an isolation ward meant for H1N1 patients!!!!

Dayyymmmm!



By then, I was shot up with loads of antibiotics and other medications so I was too groggy to realise the gravity of the situation. My friends too were equally shocked by the outcome, but they stayed with me in the hospital throughout the night. More IVs replaced empty ones while there was the occasional blood sample taken from my other arm. I zonked out for the umpteenth time.

I regained consciousness a couple of hours later. Everybody around me had masks on, including my three friends :)



It is at times like this that you truly appreciate how lucky you are to have friends running errands and being there for you, especially when one is away from one’s hometown and family. Thank you so much for taking care of me Sumeet, Abhilash and Pratik!

Doctors doing their rounds too examined me and asked me another set of questions. By then, I was starting to feel quite fine, due to all those IV treatments. The fact that I was in an H1N1 isolation ward finally started to sink in. But rather than scaring me, I was actually quite confident it wouldn’t be H1N1.

Yes Maharashtra has one of the highest cases of H1N1 in India currently, but compare the number of those infected (approx 1000) with the total population of the state (114.2 million) and that is not even 0.001%. Not to mention the fact that I never take public transportation like bus or train. On top of that, I’ve just returned from a vacation in Mizoram, so I wasn’t even in the state for a long time. Yes there was still a chance of catching the virus, but see how miniscule that chance is. I have never won the lottery, what are the odds that I have caught this virus?

My friends too believed I wasn’t infected with H1N1 and continued making fun of me (or maybe they forced themselves to believe it wasn’t H1N1 because in case it was *touch wood* it would mean they too were infected). Yes, grim comedy indeed.

And then around midnight when I was in a much better condition, they shifted me to Sahyadri Hospital, a private hospital with much better facilities and amenities.




Even though I have read up a lot on H1N1 regarding its symptoms and precautionary measures, there were a couple of new things we discovered during my moment of H1N1 trial.

1 - Private hospitals are not allowed to do an H1N1 throat-swab test here in Pune. Only the OPD department of designated Government Hospitals are allowed to do the test.

2 - Even at such testing centers, only those people who are extremely ill, like those who have been bedridden for weeks or unresponsive to the initial medicines are allowed to take the throat swab test for H1N1. We learnt that the hard way. Once my fever and cough were gone, I was discharged and we made our way to Sassoon Hospital. Government hospitals, as we all know, are quite different from private ones. After finally managing to find the right counter to inquire where to take the test, we were told to go to Naidu Govt hospital. Argh. Apparently, in Pune, the only Govt hospital that can treat infectious diseases is Naidu Hospital.

When we finally reached Naidu hospital, the staff told us they could not do a throat swab test on me! It was then that they explained everything was Govt sanctioned (meaning "FREE") so only those with severe cases were allowed to take the test otherwise if every Tamish, Deep and Hareesh wanted to take a random H1N1 test, it would be extremely expensive and waste of resource for the Govt. We understood. Sensing our disappointment, the staff scheduled an appointment with the doctor at the hospital. The doc was a very sweet lady doc who listened to our case and then prescribed us medicines. And guess what? All that was FREE! We didn't have to pay for the consultancy or any of the medicines prescribed. All free at Naidu Hospital! Wow.

So, after resting for two more days and religiously taking the prescribed medicines, I was finally fit enough to go to work...







All in all, it was a very different experience for me. A part of me always knew it couldn't have been the Swine flu, but a part of me was relieved it really wasn't!

My cousin joked that I now have a new blog topic to write about :D But even though it was just a false alarm, I really appreciate all the messages of support and well wishes I got on Facebook and WhatsApp from my friends, family, school and college classmates, colleagues and peers while I was in the hospital. Thank you all so much for your concern. Big hugz!

Meanwhile, I do hope you're all taking precautions against H1N1. Remember to do the basics, like washing your hands regularly with soap, avoiding crowded places, drinking plenty of fluids and eating nutritious food, especially vitamin C. I may be lucky this time, but you and I can still fall victim to this disease the next time.

Here's to health and life. Cheers.


Monday, February 16, 2015

Chp 549. Dad anniversary videos


As I mentioned in my previous post - One Year Too Soon, I have posted a few photos of our family commemorating dad's one year death anniversary. But due to bad internet connectivity in Mizoram, I wasn't able to upload the videos.

Now that I'm back in Mumbai / Pune, here are the videos.

The videos need a special mention because they were aired live on TV at Doordarshan (DDK) and LPS channel for everybody (in Mizoram) to watch. For my non-Mizo friends, I think this is a good opportunity to inform you that since our Mizo society is very close-knitted, there is this daily special TV program on our local channels called "Khawhar Chhungte Pual" dedicated to friends and family of a dearly departed are aired.

In our case, the cable TV operators aired three videos that night.

The first music video is a song composed exclusively for dad by the talented Lalnunpuia Hrahsel. The music video was shot by renowned MV producers "RDS Shots" at our home, mostly in daddy's room (which was formerly my room before I shifted downstairs*).

And the whole song was performed by noted Mizo celebrity singer (and also of Khawnglung Run fame) - the talented Alex Lalchhuankima.

He came to dad's memorial service with his wife too, who's also another famous Mizo celebrity singer.


And here is the music video. The video may not relate much to most of you, but to those of us who miss dad each and every day, this song brought tears to our eyes. Do have a look...





The second video aired on TV was the story of dad's life. The narration is in Mizo and there are many precious rare photographs of dad in the video which my sisters managed to find after searching far and wide.





And the last video is a general memorial music video with various photographs displayed on the backdrop of a popular funeral song. My sisters included a lot of my photographs in the video and that made it even more special for me.



So these are the three videos I said I'll update. Hope the upload was not futile, especially to our relatives living outside India.

Here's to dad. Cheers.


Thursday, February 12, 2015

Chp 548. One year too soon


9th February, 2014. That was when dad passed away last year. And now it has already been a year. How time flies by so quickly!

In our Mizo culture, the first death anniversary is significant, though usually not as ritualistic as a Mizo funeral tradition. And so, in spite of extremely hectic work schedule (we’re kinda going through a very crucial transition phase with tight deadline), I had no other option by to apply for leave. Flew home at 6 in the morning last Saturday from Mumbai.

My sister and her husband too flew from Malaysia. We all met up at Kolkata airport. And to keep up with English family tradition, I had beer with my brother-in-law at 9 in the morning at the departure lounge.


I was so buzzed with that early morning drink, that by the time I reached Aizawl, I started reading words wrongly… :P


The Lengpui bridge was still down, so we had to take the longer detour via Sairang. Took a couple of really breathtaking videos on the way home too, but I won’t be able to upload those from this extremely slow Mizoram internet speed connection.


Finally yayyy, Home sweet home Chaltlang!


Was dark soon. My two nieces cozied up my cold room. This was the room dad used to sleep in before he went into permanent sleep.


The next morning just after sunrise, we all visited daddy’s grave…




Our locality had another funeral on the same day, and a lot of my friends and neighbors were at the graveyard digging up the new grave…



Had quick breakfast after we got back home because we had a long day ahead…


U Baby was one of the first to arrive, bringing in a lot of chicken snacks for guests to eat. She also helped us with the flower preparation.



As well-wishers and family members started arriving, it was soon time to watch the airing of daddy’s first memorial video, aired on Doordarshan DDK channel at 3:40 PM. I'll try uploading this video on my YouTube channel later.






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While everybody was watching the memorial video on TV, we forgot about the chicken snacks in the oven, and that caught fire!!!!!


Soon it was time to lay the final flower decorations. We once again made our way to the graveyard.


According to our custom, this is again known as “Makpa chanpual” where they help as much as they can…






We quickly rushed home, as more people arrived. We didn’t invite anybody personally, as there were too many to invite. So instead we made it an open house, and dinner was there for anybody who came to pay their condolences.



We ordered the food from Fey Fey catering, and they arrived with their food.


We had a short eulogy and prayer service inside the house…



Meanwhile, the caterers prepared the dishes outside…

























Hungry peeps everywhere :)













I took a pic with Alex and his wife, both of them celebrity singers here in Mizoram. Alex sang the second music video for dad which aired on LPS Channel. I’ll try uploading or sharing those videos once I have better internet connection.


Soon it was late. Eunice and gang too came late in the night and gifted me lots of smoked pork to take back to Mumbai! Unfortunately, they already had dinner, so there was a lot of leftover. Here are some yummy juicy pork leftover.


It was cold once most of the people left. So we made our own fire.




One final selfie using the selfie-stick before calling it a night. Turning this occasion of sadness into happiness is something dad would have loved. He was always cheerful and humorous.


A memorable day indeed. Thanking everybody who came or remembered us.