Bengaluru
FC 226 by Ashvini Ranjan on Tawang & Back was much appreciated. There were many likes and a couple of comments too.
Laksmi Raman: “Dear Prasanna, Please thank Ashvini for his post on their trip to Tawang. As he has described, I believe Arunachal Pradesh is full of natural beauty. I have been to Ladakh, and if Tawang is similar, it is worth visiting.”
Amar: “Liked the Tawang post a lot. As an aside, only 38 percent of the kids there get to clear their 10th grade due to the scarcity of good teaching facilities. The company where I work in Mumbai was doing a proof of concept in providing broadband services over satellite. We selected Tawang since the whole idea was to reach remote areas where fibre cannot reach and there is bandwidth scarcity. The local cable operator at Tawang was contacted. For the 10th exam which was to be held on March 23, we tied up with a movie theatre in Tawang (during the day there were no movie shows) and got students to the movie theatre. We tied up with an online education company in Mumbai and through the BoS we provided real-time interactive classes from Mumbai to Tawang through BoS. The kids were thrilled and so were the local politicians who made the best of it.”
[Amar, did the percentage improve after your outreach? Is this outreach continuing?]
🤕 No Pain, No Gain
Two weeks. Another two perhaps, before I become an outcast. Punning has helped dull the pain though it is killing the receiving party. Smiling through one’s pain can be confused with a grimace. But it helps. Many have asked me how I can laugh when I’m in pain. I laugh again and tell myself that but for my tryst with my wrist, they wouldn't have called and checked on me. No pain, no gain.
Many told me, in a well-meaning way, that I am lucky to have fractured my left wrist. My cousin Ananthu said it would have been worse if it was the right wrist. He was speaking from experience. Another friend, a lawyer, said, “Thank God! You did not fracture the scapula, the clavicle or the femur!” I wondered how he knew all these terms. Perhaps he studied medical jurisprudence. Anyway, I looked them up and agreed with him. I realised that some people make no bones about discussing the bones you may have broken but for landing on the left wrist. As if breaking my wrist was providential. Anyway, I must compliment them for their osteology but I will wait till I’m able to type with my left hand. I have the vicarious desire to make my compliments left-handed. No pain, no gain.
One thing is for sure, the number of people who called and who messaged made me feel lucky.
Quite a few of them did that after reading FC 224. No pain, no gain. A few of my relatives too looked me up. Besides uttering platitudes like ‘count your blessings’ they start painting a picture of gloom if the fall had resulted in more serious damage. They wish to know what procedure I underwent and I tell them that the fractured bones are held together by wires and that I felt relieved when my Ortho said I did not require plates and screws. Then they discuss their experience with different Orthos and how a couple of them botched up. I tell them, ‘Be careful of what you say, I’m wired’. Their nervous laughter tells me that they are not impressed. One of them looks at his wristwatch and announces that it’s time to leave. They ask me to take care and I tell them “No worries I watch my wrist”. They groan as they leave. I enjoy the moment. No pain, no gain.
Jane Fonda used ‘no pain, no gain’ as her slogan for her 1982 aerobics workout videos. But the phrase dates back to the 5 century BCE, when the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles wrote that “there’s no success without pain” in his play Electra. Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “There’s no gain without pain”.
So, what did I gain? My wife fussed over me and was there to help me at every step. Not that she is less caring under normal circumstances but this kind of attention? Well, well, unmatched gain, thanks to the pain. Community residents also narrated stories of broken bones of a variety and made me feel I got off lightly. Friends can be fiends. They floated the theory that I was ogling at a pretty girl and that my heart missed a beat and my foot a step. It is a good thing I did not tell them that the air hostess helped me fasten and later unfasten the seat belt. That would have been fodder for their fertile imagination. I’m not risking disclosing that here. The blighters are too lazy to read my post but unfailingly press the ‘like’ button, to please me.
There’s a saying ‘You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain’. In our lives, we don’t get what we want without some effort. In our daily interactions with friends, family and third parties we find ourselves conceding or compromising to settle something peacefully or simply to move on. This leads us to the question ‘Is conceding or compromising a pain?’ ‘Is the result a gain in its true sense?’ Perhaps so, simply because given the choice, a person may not have liked to concede or compromise. But he may end up doing so to put a quietus to something that could be contentious.
In love and marriage, spousal compromise is a common remedy to keep the relationship on an even keel. Peace, harmony or, simply put, amity is the gain. Unyielding and assertive attitudes cause pain and the differences become irreconcilable. Conceding or yielding may seem painful but the resultant peace and calm is the gain.
Many times, pain may seem like a wasted effort. An athlete runs the marathon but is not one of the first three. The gain lies in the spirit of participation and the renewed desire to do better.
There is more pain to be had in following a disciplined regimen. Discipline is a pain one has to endure to develop mental and physical fitness. Gukesh, the newly crowned World Champion in Chess spoke of discipline being his guiding force.
But pain invested for an unrealistic gain may lead to disappointment and anguish which are another genre of pain. Imagine getting into a weight loss program or taking steroids to bulk up!
One may end up regretting it. We can ask ourselves if regret can be the pain of embarking on a misadventure. It would appear so because regret can linger and rob a person of his peace of mind. The conclusion is easy. The pain of discipline is far lighter than the pain of regret, which sits in one’s heart and mind like a weight.
The discipline of writing the post, Sunday-on-Sunday, is indeed painful and the physical pain of a broken wrist adds to it. But I would rather endure the pain than regret not publishing my post on Sunday. I hope readers like this post which is, understandably, a bit shorter.
Now to end in a lighter vein, a few painful jokes:
Pedro had a dent in his car while driving in London. He wanted it fixed. So, he looked up the Yellow Pages and called a dentist.
Did you hear that they made a webpage for people who suffer from chronic eye pain?
It’s a site for sore eyes.An Irishman, Mick goes to the doctor complaining of stomach pain...after palpation,
Doctor: "Well I can't find anything wrong with you, it must be the drinking"
Mick: "I can come back when you're sober, Doctor"
That’s it for now. Guest post welcome for posting on 22nd December. Take care and be safe. See you next week. Ciao!
This was a puntastic column :)
Platitudes on being grateful are so annoying. After reading your post, I will try to guard against them....if I ever dished them out.