SINDH COURIER

ANAESTHESIAC ALCHEMY AND THE MODERN CIVILIZATION

The highest form of anaesthesia, is no doubt, love. But there is another genre of anaesthesia, which is higher still. It is Religion and Fear of Hell. Religion and fear have been used by clever people as anaesthesia

Dr. Jernail S. Anand

Points to Ponder

*Anesthesia has a benumbing effect on our nerves. And the caravan of pain passes unnoticed.

*Animals do not go to any ‘babas’. They do not have any religious places too. If men have these things, it is because men belong to a lower order, who need to be trained in certain things which might bring them at par with animals and vegetation, so far as loyalty to gods is concerned.

Anaesthesia is a medical term and every one of us, sometime or the other in life, has had it used on our bodies. After anaesthesia, any operation can be performed on your body. You will not feel the pain. I have seen this theory work in life in many ways. Anesthesia has a benumbing effect on our nerves. And the caravan of pain passes unnoticed.

Anaesthetic Agent

The greatest anaesthetic agent is love. It makes you unaware of so many things in your life, and, in this state of semi-oblivion, you make decisions which have a lasting effect on your lives. Love works like an opium, and keeps you in a sedate mood. You are in the realm of romance, and think of things which are actually unthinkable. It is in love that men think of alliances which are not otherwise permissible. And in love, young girls break ‘Diana’s law’. Young men move on a journey of no return with their loved ones. When in a high state of being drugged, young men and women run away from their homes, have they ever thought how will they settle in life? And, they are quite oblivious of the honour killers, from among their ‘loving’ fathers and brothers, stalking them. Love overturns the head of a person, blinds his vision, and confounds his senses. The world calls them ‘gone’. While they have lost all sense of right and wrong, the worst happens to them. Marriage in love at a tender age is a disaster.

Of Doctors and Poets

Doctors have come to know the power of music in settling the nerves of a person who is to undergo an operation. I have known a famous surgeon from Punjab who would sing Batalvi when he would carry out operations. Of course, he himself used to be drunk, not with poetry alone. It may seem a bit overstated, but it is a fact that music soothes our nerves when we are in utter tension, and, it can transport us to another world, during which, our body won’t mind even if it is ripped apart. The car drivers use music which helps them in the lift up, and the journey becomes pleasant. Batalvi, who was in stopless pain, never felt it, rather enjoyed it and elevated his state, courtesy the music and the poems that were ringing in his mind.

Anaesthesia and the Bizworld

What really surprises me is how the realtors and their salesman use anaesthesia on your senses. A good sales executive can sell you the moon, and you will realize it only when you see in her hands a cheque of advance issued and signed by you.  They tell exalted untruths, [sorry, I won’t use the word ‘lies’ because they are businessmen, not ‘liars’],  which look so sweet to the eager ears and the dreams they build like rainbows spread in the skies, prove too bewitching for common intelligence. The success of the great network of sales women and men thrives on the eagerness of men to say goodbye to their senses, and lose themselves into the dream world induced by anaesthesiatic talk. When they get back to   senses, they have already purchased a dwelling, paid an advance and committed themselves for a life time of EMI’s.

‘Shubh Labh’: Auspicious Gain

Businessmen do not stop at ‘shubh labh’ [auspicious gain] these days. They want their profits to double and triple. The financial wizards offer their services and make millions in days on the basis of deft management of the stock market. I see them talking how they are making wealth, multiplying it, investing it, and getting fat revenues. There is no one to tell them all the wealth that you gather at the cost of others, is ultimately wasted by your sons and daughters. Wealth is a great anaesthesia which makes their moral sense entirely numb. They can cheat their own brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. They have only one passion. Wealth. It makes them insensitive to every other consideration. Like love, wealth too is a great anaesthetic which keeps the people in a state of animated drugging.

Parents and the Marital Monastery

Parents also use the anaesthesia of love for their sons and daughters when they force them into marriages of their own choice. The girl is often told: ‘It is a matter of family honour… don’t tarnish your dad’s turban…marry where we like’. Girls are brought up in such an environment that they know, they have nowhere to go. They can’t rebel. At a tender age, they are unable to take a solid decision and stick to it. So, parents force them into marriages which they do not like. And this is the beginning of marital disaster. Home is not a marital monastery.

Dowry too is another anaesthesiatic drug. Young men grow up dreaming of cars and palaces in dowry. And when they don’t get their pipedreams fulfilled, they turn killers. Otherwise, it is a cat and dog life, full of turns and twists. But no one is satisfied in these marriages, which breed extra marital affairs.

Civil Services & Anaesthetics of Success

Administrative jobs – IAS, PCS, Neet and Success – these are dominant passions of our society. Every fifth person wants to be an IAS. And see, how academies are running late night making millions. A few get through and land at dream jobs, and astronomical packages, while 95 out of hundred are left stranded on the road to success. They are high brained people, and when they fail to succeed in their passion, the brain takes nose-dive. A vacant mind is devil’s corporate office. And the great crime that we see in our society, in fact, has made every second person an undetected criminal. Lure for success is a great anaesthesia which keeps people benumbed, and lakhs of rupees are taken away from their accounts for settling their sons and daughters in services. The most harrowing thing is that in the family, there is not one person left who could raise his voice against indecent means to gain success. This is the degradation of our society in the absence of moral checks and balances, which have been lifted because unscrupulous masters want a free and smooth ride in society so far as crime and double dealing are concerned.

Take Away: Anaesthesia of Religion & Fear of Hell

The highest form of anaesthesia, I talked in the beginning, is, no doubt, love. But there is another genre of anaesthesia, which is higher still. It is Religion and Fear of Hell. Millions of people in India are under the spell of religion and the fear of hell, and are paying obeisance to self-styled ‘babas’ who are making fool of their innocence. The most prized thing every person is born with is his original intelligence. Animals do not go to any ‘babas’. They do not have any religious places too. If men have these things, it is because men belong to a lower order, who need to be trained in certain things which might bring them at par with animals and vegetation, so far as loyalty to gods is concerned. But, religion and fear have been used by clever people as anaesthesia, and when the people are singing hymns, their pockets start leaking. At an ‘ashram’, if they lose money, or their daughter, they think it is ‘sabab’ [Punya: An act of charity]. God bless!!!!