The last 6 months had been more down than up. Pneumonia slowed me down in Feb. But all those were prelude to surreality.
We did a 4 week trip to the US for Ashwin’s graduation, and had a good time with family and friends. Small issues were taken care of by the Juvvadi’s. We then flew in to Barcelona on June 2nd excited about the 4 of us being together in the same city – an impossible sighting. We had shortened our Spanish trip by 5 days and decided not to go to Seville and Granada. Just Barcelona and out.
“ Out’ took a different meaning. We spent 4 days in the most wonderful city and with 2 of the dearest people you can ever meet – Christine and Elizabeth. Walking back from dinner on June 8th, I felt something was off. Something was not right for a few days. A faint sometimes followed a cough.
After a good meal with Elizabeth, her friend, Amita and I were walking on the Mediterranean beach on a windy day. When we left, I told Elizabeth and Amita that a visit to a hospital was a good idea and that we should get a blood test to rule out high potassium or sodium etc.…. That was probably why I did not feel good. Elizabeth called her friend who was a medic, and was asked to just get it done across the road from the hospital. Amita and I dilly dallied, citing costs, hassle and that India was just 2 days away. Then we casually made a decision to go in and check out the hospital procedures and costs for a blood test. We walk across, got into the elevator into the entrance of the ER room.. The elevator door opened and I collapsed. An impossible set of circumstances that began a 4 minute time span to save my life. That is all a Ventricular Fibrillation provides – 4 mts. We don’t have a chance of survival if it happened across the street, at the restaurant, anywhere in Barcelona, certainly Bangalore. I was in a total faint. One particular combination and permutation in a zillion possibilities led me to the ER room in Barcelona when it happened.
The clock started with 10 Spanish speaking , docs in The Del Mar hospital in downtown Barcelona. Amita, thinking it was a stroke, started thinking of my request that I did not want to live on tubes etc.… She said my jaws opened and staring into eternity. I don’t remember a thing. It was a critical ventricular arrhythmia. I wasn’t alive for a few seconds. I have no recollection of it, but was told they did CPR and electrically shocked me back from the beyond.
I came out and was in a most surreal frame of being. I could see about 10 people yelling at me in Spanish. First it seemed to me that the dead was watching the world. This continued for quite some time. Just watched them. Did not know it was me. Did not know if anything was happening or real or a movie. Then a thought came to anchor me in my past form of naresh. Then I thought it was a dream. Then I realized it was real. As more and more thoughts came flooding back , I remembered that I was Naresh. I was not keeping well. I asked the doctor what happened. Was told it was a critical arrhythmia. I blew it off thinking it was a passing episode. And became established in the known. And the Gillette minutes in the upcoming days.
Attending to every moment unfolds its miracles – the magnificence of creation. Seeing the most beautiful garden in a flower is good enough. This experience from the back of beyond has firmly established that the world and magnificence of creation is manufactured by our own thoughts. The world vanishes or takes other forms in various states of Naresh. Thoughts and hence the world happens only when we are conscious; i.e. thoughts and the world happen only in waking state or other semi states of waking like dreams, day dreams, coma etc. It is nowhere to be found in sleep, coma or death. But that cosmos – the impersonal energy – beyond thoughts, time and space exists in all states of being – a faint, death, sleep, dreams, day dreams, schizophrenia, waking state, vegetable state.
I am that
That, is all there IS
“I write this from hospital del mar in Barcelona. All of us are increasingly reminded of the impossibility of me being alive. But, this is no time to celebrate. I am writing this 3 days post incident. I need to get home to Bangalore. It is a complex process. The doctors give me a fit to fly only with a para medic or a doctor besides me. The logistics are immense. But I have the super woman Amita, Ashok, Ashwin and Nisha to get me home. They have flown in from various parts of the world. The docs and nurses need visas to India. Tickets needs to be available. Money had to organized.
My magical doctor saint, Dr Ram Mohan Bhat, has offered to come to London and escort us from London to Bangalore. Elizabeth has doctors in Barcelona willing to help us from Barcelona to London, since they have EU passports. Atleast we are not going to be here forever. We however get a surprise from British Airways. Tickets are just not available and costs a few more zeros than it should. While everyone is ok with me travelling with a doc and a nurse, one doctor tells us it is “Operation Suicide” without a defibrillator put in. The costs of the defib (aka ICD) is the GDP of a small country.
But the play of the universe is endless. I am so well. So incredibly well. Just in awe of the understanding that the cosmic dance is all that exists. The astonishment is that there are no dancers in this dance. Manufacturing an individual is at odds with this dance and takes us away from the beauty of everything around us. It is happening. Let it be. The best part of the vacation have been these days. Closeted in a 10Ft by 5Ft dual occupancy turns on some magical conversation between us.
Elizabeth introduced me to Mr Billy Collins, an American poet laureate who writes the most amazing poems. Inspired me to write two poems – one for Elizabeth and the other for Dr Bhat.
The breath across the table
Patient-ly watching Dr Bhat
Pen his notes across the paper
Like Sachin ambling for a single
The breath turns shallow
Like the politician
Seeking anticipatory bail
Looking up
With his Zen eyes
Reassuring
The politician turns in to a dove
The dove flies
With its family
On the wings of his care and concern
And here is one for Elizabeth. An angel in Barcelona. She and Christine remind me of all the possibilities in life.
There is an angel in Barcelona
And it ain’t Messi
Dribbling through life
On her wheels
Spreading joy, light
Contributing
Inside clear
Outside the same
Simple in intent
Ferocious in impact
Energizing compassionate action
Flowering love
Sprouting comfort
Contributing humaneness
Messi Nutmegged
In the field of life
The name is Elizabeth.
Ashok flew in from San Francisco. He was integral to solving this impossible puzzle of tickets, visas, medics, paramedics, doctor consent, airline consent, medicine kit bags etc… Ashwin rushed back from Madrid where he was planning to having a good time and Nisha parachuted in from London where she was visiting a friend on her way back to Chicago. Praveen Chopra offered to fly to Barcelona. We keep my buddy on standby. Nisha left after a few days. Having her with us was so energizing and seemed to take it all in stride. Just has that presence.
Ashok and Ashwin are furious at work. Approaching it like planning for a war. So blessed to have this support for Amita. I hear these marvellous stories from the hospital bed. Manu was a petty shop owner in Barcelona. Family in Gujarat. He got talking to Ashwin and told Amita that he has told his brother that a family of 4 will be staying with them in the one room tenement apartment on the outskirts of Barcelona. That’s it. Simple. No Fuss. He then bought a box of poha (beaten rice) for Amita to cook.
I guess that is why VFs and sickness happen. I need to fall sick for Manu to be the universe. Untouchability needed to have existed for Gandhi to become so loved.
To remind us that the universality is where it makes meaning. It is all there is. Every moment is an eternal manifestation of the infinite . it is an outpouring of the magnificence waiting to be discovered. All else is a fleeing manifestation by and of the universe.
I write this from the hospital in Bangalore
We got home through Dubai. A German nurse and a Spanish doc accompanied me till Dubai. They did not have visas to India. They handed me over to a doc from Hyderabad, who flew in for this handover. Aroon took the lead in Bangalore. Other friends helped out with the logistics. The medicine kit was from a hospital that Balaji knew in Hyderbad. The flight was super comfortable. Thankfully without incident. We drove from the airport directly to the hospital. Having seen it all, Ami and I had only a smile, when we incredibly drove past our home without entering it – in an ambulance with its siren providing us the bad violin background essential in all Indian movies. We are now in the comfort zone of known docs who care. We are having a ICD implant done on Monday. It will act as a police man and detect and prevent VF from happening again. A weak heart and body has gotten weaker. But this is no time to ponder over that. Let the universal do whatever it has to do. The implant procedure is a simple one with local anaesthesia. Should go well.
Every person who has to hear this story – pauses. And tells us how incredibly lucky we are. It is. I am not sure if it is luck or ill luck. It is and the eternal infinite emerges ever so often. That is all there is. The VF was a good way to go – if there was ever was one. But, I think the universe has left gas in my tank to do its will. I look forward to most possibilities!
I write this the day after the ICD implant
Whoof! The procedure was physically and emotionally draining. I came out distraught. I just about had it with this whole thing. Screw the universe. It is just unfair. In a few hours I got back to home base and stayed attentive and aware. The hard part was a bloody sandbag they put over the wound to stop bleeding for 3 hours. Local anaesthesia helps recover quick post-surgery but Man! It allows you to witness the blood bath during the surgery.
The second day has been far better. The doctors want to get us home and take it from there. The implant is there and non-intrusive. I was reminded by our doctor that two of the gold medallists in the most recent Olympics wore ICDs.
In all of this, I stayed on top of my little project. Willing it along with emails. We are going home tomorrow. Cheers to Life.
Noodles with Naresh 