This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
The ‘Knee’dy traveller
सैर कर दुनिया की ग़ाफ़िल, ज़िन्दगानी फिर कहाँ,
ज़िंदगी गर कुछ रही तो ये जवानी फिर कहाँ।
-ख़्वाजा मीर दर्द
Travel the world o! carefree man, the life is short;
Even if the life is prolonged, the youth is short.
- Khwaja Meer Dard
Though the above written couplet is hugely inspiring and brilliant, it is also true, unfortunately, that I have spectacularly failed to follow it in my life, till recently, atleast.
Being a doctor, a knee replacement surgeon(orthopedic surgeon) at that, in India, has meant that I have lived about ninety percent of my life toiling hard in school and medical college followed by exhausting struggles of private practice and married life.
But, lately, the essence of the couplet has slowly dawned upon me – life is short and youth even more so! Admittedly, the golden years of youth, might have already slipped out of my buttery fingers. Nevertheless, some life, short as it is, still remains in my ambitions to travel the World. Thus, lately I have begun to consciously roam around the planet and observe the unending beauty of mother nature, and additionally observe the eccentricities, fickleness, traditions, joys and sorrows of the people inhabiting the world.
Being a medical professional, I, alongwith my fellow medicos, come across death and disease, and upheavals these evil twins cause in the lives of people, perhaps a little more than other professionals.
This blog is my humble, if feeble, attempt to write about, not only my travels, but also about experiences and events that I come across in hospitals and the life in general.
It is my firm belief that to survive in this society, and the world at large, one needs to have a healthy dose of humour and an ability to laugh at oneself, prevailing circumstances and the surroundings. Otherwise serious harm can be caused to one’s reason and ego.
Thus I have written in the introductory line of this blog, that this is a – ‘Strabismic view’- of the world as seen by the eyes of an orthopedician. Because I do think, rather strongly, that the world is too weird, too awkward, too preposterous; to be looked and thought upon directly and seriously. One needs to have a slightly diverted or strabismic, or ‘cross eyed’, if you will, view to remain sane, in this crazy crazy world.
I hope you all will enjoy my travelogues, stories and even ghazals.
Thank you for visiting here.
Yours truly.
Dr Himanshu Mathur
The 'Knee'dy Traveller 