Cutting For Stone

I am a the type of reader who loves when an author takes me somewhere I have never been before and, while there, teaches me things I have never known. When they are able to do this teaching without preaching, it is an extra added bonus. It takes a little while–you need to have a little patience as it introduces the numerous main and supporting characters, the place, and the twines of the story. You are fastened. Momentum increases and you are completely absorbed. You know how some novels just possess you? Well, this book kept me captive in my own home for a weekend…

Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written coming-of-age novel weaving family, hospital and house staff, patients, community, disease, and country into a complex tapestry. It incorporates love, lust, trust, betrayal, commitment, emigration, faith, poverty, life, death, hope, dreams, fears, and just about every other big theme you can imagine without ever becoming predictable, manipulative, or cliched. It’s an epic story that feels intimate and cozy and enveloping.

Dr. Verghese clearly loves his own medical craft as well as writing. He handles his characters with utter compassion, never shrinking away from the truth of their dysfunction or destructiveness, yet bringing us along for the glory of their triumph. The best part of the novel was the genuine humanity of its many characters, and the course of their lives.

While reading you will also notice the fine points are painstakingly researched as the story is and packed full of medical jargon and situations along with vivid descriptions of Ethiopian culture and history. I have never been to Ethiopia and I know I never will. When I think of Ethiopia, I have visions of a totally undeveloped country. While I’m sure these visions are partially true, Verghese really opened my eyes to another part of the world in a country where medical teams still strive for perfection without the kind of money that easily flows into many of the hospitals of which we’re familiar. Verghese’s Ethiopia is filled with people who love their country and their food and their smells and their customs. And when a time comes that they leave their beloved country behind, they miss it as much as we would miss ours. There are multiple situations that arise throughout the book where he describes surgical procedures with spot-on accuracy, I assume. In several circumstances they become a vehicle to explain the progress of surgery through the hands of medical pioneers.

The title of the novel Cutting for Stone is a reference to the Hippocratic Oath which states “I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.”. Apparently years ago when people had bladder stones, there were medical professionals called Lithologists, who would cut into the bladder to remove the stone. Of course because of poor hygiene and using the same, unclean knife on multiple patients, many of the patients would succumb to infection. Also of interest is that the three main characters all have the surname, Stone, which sort of leaves the title open for multiple interpretations. By the time you get to the end of the novel, those three words become the poignant portal to the denouement and the thrust of its theme.

If I say too much about this book, I’ll have to throw in a lot of spoilers, and suspense has its delicious rewards in this leisurely paced plot. So I won’t. Suffice it to say, I believe your patience with Verghese will be rewarded with the wisdom you will find woven into the story. It is a brilliant novel which revolves around what is broken – limbs, family ties, trust – and the process of rebuilding them.

Allow yourself the luxury of time to read “Cutting for Stone” without interruption. If you do not, you will find yourself thinking about the
characters and wondering what is going to happen to each one.

P.S. I must say that I found reading this 650 page novel a bit of a chore. It most certainly could have used some heavy editing. Time and again I would look at the page number, and groan.

Maybe…

1. Maybe…we were supposed to meet the wrong people before meeting the right one so that, when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.
2. Maybe…when the door of happiness closes, another opens; but, often times, we look so long at the closed door that we don’t even see the new one which has been opened for us.
3. Maybe…it is true that we don’t know what we have until we lose it, but it is also true that we don’t know what we have been missing until it arrives.
4. Maybe…the happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
5. Maybe…the brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; after all, you can’t go on successfully in life until you let go of your past mistakes, failures and heartaches.
6. Maybe…you should dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go, be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you dream of, and want to do.
7. Maybe…there are moments in life when you miss someone — a parent, a spouse, a friend, a child — so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real, so that once they are around you appreciate them more.
8. Maybe…the best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you’ve ever had.
9. Maybe…you should always try to put yourself in others’ shoes. If you feel that something could hurt you, it probably will hurt the other person, too.
10. Maybe…you should do something nice for someone every single day, even if it is simply to leave them alone.
11. Maybe…giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back. Don’t expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart; but, if it doesn’t, be content that it grew in yours.
12. Maybe…happiness waits for all those who cry, all those who hurt, all those who have searched, and all those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of all the people who have touched their lives.
13. Maybe…you shouldn’t go for looks; they can deceive; don’t go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile, because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.
14. Maybe…you should hope for enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy
15. Maybe…you should try to live your life to the fullest because when you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling but when you die, you can be the one who is smiling and everyone around you crying.

Winners and Losers

Strut along

You just say the word “Shoes” and any woman perks up! Girls love their shoes!

Past weekend, I was organizing my shoes and they brought back memories. Each shoe had a story - Places where I have trodden wearing my high brown boots, black heels with silver bow strap in which I slipped during a date, neon green stomping boots bought during winter breaks to ‘look stylish’, and oh yes! those painful stilletos which reminds me that sometimes we need to be barefoot.

We all want the answer to our life’s purpose. We want to stay on the path that ensures we are not going to fall in the ditch. We need to learn how to be “That Girl.” - That girl who always seems so strong on the inside. That girl who knows how to walk through challenges. That girl who is confident and always has a light about her. That girl who ALWAYS has the perfect shoes for her outfit!!

Being prepared is half the battle and choosing the correct shoes is such a fun way to look at it! I love shoes and realize I need to always be ready for what life may throw. Therefore, we need to make sure that we are running our race with the “right” shoes on at the “right” time so we can finish “our” race strong.

To learn about the different seasons of life and how to be equipped for whatever comes our way, it is crucial to put on the right shoes everyday to walk strong in life no matter what we face!!

So ladies, let’s strut along…

Career Women

A not-so-recent written piece by famous author/ writer Chetan Bhagat:

Recently, I saw the recently released movie, Cocktail. The plot revolves around a philanderer hero who has to make the tough choice between two hot women. The uber-modern movie was set in London. The characters drank, danced in nightclubs and had one-night stands with aplomb. They worked in new-age aspirational jobs like glamour photography, graphic art and software design. And yet, the guy eventually chooses the girl who cooks home food, dresses conservatively, wins his mother’s approval and is happy to be the ideal Indian wife. In fact, even the rejected girl, a free-spirited, independent woman agrees to change herself. To get the guy, she is happy to cook and change her lifestyle to match that of the ideal Indian wife.

While the movie was fun, such depictions disturb me a little. When successful, strong women are portrayed as finding salvation in making dal and roti for their husbands, one wonders what kind of India we are presenting to our little girls.

Really, is that what a woman’s life is all about — to make hot phulkas? Of course, i shouldn’t be so bothered, many would say. It is a Bollywood movie. The commercial pressure to present a palatable story is real. Above all, the makers have a right to tell the narrative they want.

Yet, when our most modern and forward cinema sinks into regressive territory, it is unfair to our women. It is also depressing because deep down we know such attitudes exist. Many Indian men, even the educated ones, have two distinct profiles of women — the girlfriend material and the wife material. One you party with, the other you take home. The prejudice against non-traditional women who assert themselves is strong.

Let us look at another part of the world. Yahoo, a leading tech firm and a Fortune 500 company, recently hired a new woman CEO, Marissa Mayer. What’s more, she was six months pregnant when she was hired, a fact she did not hide in her interviews.

Marissa will take some time off after childbirth and will be back at work later. She can manage both. There is something to celebrate about that. Marissa is a role model for women and even men.

I’d like Indian men to have an open mind about choosing their life partners and revise their ‘ideal woman’ criteria. Having a traditional wife who cooks, cleans and is submissive might be nice. However, choosing a capable, independent and career-oriented woman can also bring enormous benefits. For instance, one, a man who marries a career woman gets a partner to discuss his own career with. A working woman may be able to relate better to organizational issues than a housewife. A spouse who understands office politics and can give you good advice can be an asset. Two, a working woman diversifies the family income streams. In the era of expensive apartments and frequent lay-offs, a working spouse can help you afford a decent house and feel more secure about finances. Three, a working woman is better exposed to the world. She brings back knowledge and information that can be useful to the family. Whether it’s the latest deals or the best mutual fund to invest in, or even new holiday destinations, a working woman can add to the quality of life. Four, the children of a working woman learn to be more independent and will do better than mollycoddled children. Five, working women often find some fulfillment in their jobs, apart from home. Hence, they may have better life satisfaction, and feel less dependent on the man. This in turn can lead to more harmony. Of course, all these benefits accrue if men are able to keep their massive, fragile egos aside and see women as equals.

Sure, there are drawbacks also in being with working women. But the modern age that we are in, the phulka-making bride may come at a cost of missing out on other qualities. Please bear that in mind before you judge women based on their clothes, interest in the kitchen or the confidence in their voice.

My mother worked for 40 years. My wife is the COO at an international bank. It makes me proud. She doesn’t make phulkas for me. We outsource that work to our help, and it doesn’t really bother me. If my wife had spent her life in the kitchen, it would have bothered me more.

Please choose your partner carefully. Don’t just tolerate, but accept and even celebrate our successful women. They take our homes ahead and our country forward. We may have less hot phulkas, but we will have a better nation.

Roll With It..!!

“So what do you hope to be doing 5 years from now?“

That’s a common question asked by hiring managers in many job interviews, and certainly a question that I have been asked both as a candidate and as a hiring manager in interviews. Ambitious candidates often have a plan as to where they “hope” to be professionally in their chosen field.

But what if the same question was asked for your life?

Let’s face it, we all have some idea of how we would like life to turn out. But the reality is that life usually doesn’t end up looking like the picture we had in our head. We tend to get a little (or a lot) out of sorts when things don’t go as we plan.

We as humans like to make plans for our lives. I think most of us go through life expecting everything to go just as we planned it. To get that great job, find that perfect companion and get married, buy a great house and raise our 2 kids, and retire somewhere to gracefully live out our days watching our children and grandchildren. But realistically, that isn’t always how it happens. We are yet to find that perfect mate, or maybe they walked out on you because they didn’t want to be married anymore. That great job you always wanted didn’t roll the final offer to you. In an instant, all those things you have planned for go up in flames. We go through our own seasons of great difficulty – the ones we didn’t ask for and above all we didn’t expect. I, too, wondered about the answers, explanations, solutions…

But what if we didn’t need answers? What if there was something better than getting easy answers and quick fixes?

Have you ever had a plan blow up in your face? I surely have a few to count… If you know me at all, you know I am a planner. There are have been times when my plans had to be changed. So what do you do when life hands you a plan-B situation instead of a plan-A situation? In my own life recently, life has dealt me a Plan B situation. Honestly, I am still walking through a Plan B.

We can’t smooth over the wrinkles and life can be really tough and we may not understand why certain situations are occurring in our lives. There often aren’t easy answers to the Plan Bs we experience.

For everyone, situations are a little different, and no one has all the answers. Sometimes, things do not turn out as we would have hoped. And circumstances don’t turn out as we would like. All of us have Plan A. What happens when Plan A is failure? God is testing us with these catastrophes. This is where the “Plan B” comes into our life. God uses our Plan B in our lives. God will always take these situations in our lives where we have pain and struggle, and will never fail at the opportunity to show us how much he loves us. God never destroys our lives, but he does allow us to make our own decisions, even when those decisions take us farther away from God.

We often wonder where God is, why are things going so badly, and why do I continue to struggle through this pain for years and years. Too often, we want that pain to be over as quickly as possible, and we scream at God when it doesn’t happen in our timing. The fact remains that God’s timing is nothing like ours, and His timing isn’t ready for us to be out of this season in life. A tough thing to swallow, that’s for sure, but true.

 

…

The reality is that each one of us, with our carefully thought out plans, will be forced to throw the plan away and divert to a plan we never considered-Plan B. Plan B’s come in many forms, but they will come. It’s a good plan with success and happiness in the picture.

Plan B is not about rearranging your summer schedule, or not having enough time to read. It’s about dealing with changes, disappointments and heartbreaks. It’s about losses; lost jobs, lost marriage, and lost lives. It’s about lost visions and lost dreams. It’s about questioning if God is any where in our circumstances. It’s about how do we handle those times that come when life knocks us off our feet and it seems as if God isn’t right there to pick us up and make everything fine again. What do we do when things happen that we never thought would, and we are totally powerless to change those outcomes. Plan B is an honest, no frills assessment of how we react when these situations come.

The question is are our plans and God’s the same? Two answers to that question: Yes, and ofcourse, No. I ponder the question for which there is no simple answer and yet reassuring myself that it’s ok not to have an answer. I agree that it’s difficult to understand when life takes a different direction. It’s about giving up the life you think you should have versus the one that God wants for you.

I am wondering how different life would be for each one of us if we chose to view our circumstances and our relationships as the gifts they are. Change in our present situation is not needed to be at peace. Change in perception is what transforms our life.

Someone once said that life is what happens when we are planning for it. Ain’t it?? So let’s roll with it..

It’s Heaven

Sure it is, when I look in my Mom‘s eyes!!

Thank You…

There is so much humanity, so much grace and good humor, so much strength and wisdom. I am thankful and be grateful for:

• The difference it made sometimes when someone just reached into the heart of our experience and named it, and sat there with us in it.
• That moment. For the chance each of us has to offer that moment to others through our listening and our respect, and the chance to make what we choose of that moment when it’s our turn.
• Throwing off this big blanket, that heavy swathing that collects around us as we move through the week of obligations. And we wake the wildness in us, stretch, shake, perambulate, whatever gets it moving, and wonder if it is time.
• The opportunity to be uncomfortable. In the strange and lonely corners of discomfort is where we find those moments of beautiful sadness when life pulsates vibrantly around us and within us, opening our heart to accept the raw and the brutal equivocally with the selfless and kind.
• For second chances. Deserved or undeserved, but truly given without reservation. Given to me and to others, but most importantly, the one I gave to myself.
• When life beat me into submission, because that is how I learnt to fight with compassion instead of fury. I am not broken, I am bendable, and I can survive anything. Damaged goods are the best kind there are, ain’t it?
• Strong, healthy friendships with wonderful people met personally, professionally and virtually who showed me the way back into the sunlight. The friends who never fail to ask the hard questions. Who show up to worry and to carry the worry and to blow it all off.
• My own tenacious spirit, which has gotten me through this difficult year. It feels like a miracle, and I’m living it every single day.
• Being lucky enough to discover depths and layers of love I’d never even imagined, love that almost hurts.
• Holding stake in my own happiness. Sure, things bite shit sometimes. But there are arms in the world that want me, and two of them are my own. That’s plenty.
• These days I can cry tears that are more honest than ever before, that my heart is not aching in vain, that I know that I am doing right by me.
• The strength to know tomorrow is another chance—the ability to understand that many others won’t have my tomorrow.
• The confidence to be alone, and not lonely. I am grateful for the way life takes you to the place farthest from what you dreamt for yourself, and that you can make a life for yourself, there.
• My grandfather, the bitter-sweet legacy he left and the love he lived.
• My parents because of their steady values and clean living, I have what I now recognize as a wholeness of spirit. It turns out the random-seeming gift of a happy childhood is not to be underestimated. The most amazing part is that they gave me this without any obligation.
• My brother, who is engineering his clever way to great things
• My adorable dog Whisky, who greeted me gleefully, rifled through the trash, and reminded me to find joy in all things.

I am grateful for words…I am grateful beyond words every single second of every day.

Happy Thanksgiving to all !!!

“Mommy” Katie Davis

If you live a comfortable life and don’t want anything or anyone messing up your comfort zone then you will want to re-examine your core beliefs and values after knowing Katie Davis whose missionary act will shake some moments…you will feel a gentle nudge from God that you have something beyond yourself to accomplish in this world – had me longing in confusion and asking, “well God, what do you want me to do now?”.

Why would she forego college, leave her parents and brother, lose friends, and break up with her boyfriend? Basically she wanted to do God’s will for her life. After reading her journey, struggles and plan on her blog, http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.in/, you will get your answer that she had a great desire to change children’s lives one by one. You will have a song in your heart and a tear in your eye. Katie makes it all “seem so easy.” Well, yes and no. She does amaze me when she continues to say “maybe just one more.”

“Mommy”

In a world full of materialism, this young woman has exchanged a life of wealth in the U.S. to serve the needs of children in Africa. Her love and call to the mission field is obvious. No one could accomplish what she has without God’s influence. This young woman read the commands of Jesus and had the nerve to actually do as He said, “If you love Me, feed my sheep.”Katie, a high school homecoming queen and student body president and honor student and girlfriend to a handsome, committed, spiritual, star athlete – had every reason to “come home.” But her heart was back in Uganda with the motherless children she had fallen in love with. Katie abandoned her Mid southern upbringing – exchanged the North American suburban dream for a life of service, poverty and sacrifice, just after graduation from high school to travel across the world and become a modern-day American Mother Theresa.

She has no formal training or experience in theology, childcare or fundraising and receives little guidance or support from others. However, she is giving all she has. She spends her days ministering to the sick, feeding the poor and changing the family tree of almost everyone she comes in contact with. At the tender age of 22, she has adopted 14 young girls and has created a loving home in the face of adversity that most of us cannot even begin to grasp. And what a heart that girl has! The founder and director of a non-profit organization called Amazima (which means truth) is a ministry which helps several children in Uganda.

We don’t know how lucky we are. Most of us can take a bath or shower whenever we want, we have a roof over our heads, we have a bed to sleep in, and we have food at the table. These are just the basics but most of the children in Uganda don’t have these luxuries. It is really something to think about.

Katie is a perfect example of someone who truly believes and lives that “her life is not her own.” Is it any wonder that the name she has been given by the people of her village is “Mommy.”

Related articles

• Doing Good: Amazima (austingilly.wordpress.com)
• Young Missionary Finalist for Magazine’s ‘Women of the Year’. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)

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