Random Musings

I woke up that day with a disturbing nightmare of having fallen down from somewhere. My pulse was racing as I wiped the sweat of my forehead. I couldn’t remember where I fell from but I felt the pain. I got up from my bed and walked towards the window. The morning dawn had illuminated the landscape. I could see the coconut trees swaying  to and fro as if being caressed by the morning breeze. Could I have fallen of a coconut tree ? ? A strange unpleasant sensation was developing within me. My thoughts were going haywire. I remembered the bed sores of the patient who had been paralysed waist down after having fallen from a coconut tree. I had dressed his wounds for a good part of my  Internship in Medical College. He was a coconut plucker at an Estate and the sole bread winner of the family. I wondered how his family was doing. Rest assured his sons didn’t take up their Dad’s profession. Over the years I have seen a steady decline in the number of coconut pluckers in our ‘beautiful’ state of Kerala (GOD’S OWN COUNTRY). Most of the next generation have left the shores  of coconut land in search of greener pastures in either the desert or in places where the snow falls. The show however still goes on and our trees get encircled high up with metallic baskets to catch the falling nuts. Still more we have imported machines from our friendly Oriental neighbours  to pluck these nuts. The last Pluckers standing  have actually turned lucky as expensive cars go to their mud baked brick houses to get them to perform their ‘holy’ acts.  I have heard of  ‘hybrid ‘ saplings which grow to smaller heights are now available in the market.  My thoughts were disturbed with the ring of my phone. It was from my Resident.

“Sir, a patient has come with history of a heavy object fallen on his head. He is unconscious. We are now taking an emergency CT Scan. Will keep you updated about the progress and Sir, they say it was a coconut fallen on his head”.

I looked out of the windows at the coconut trees.  They swayed innocently in the gentle morning breeze.

I wondered how long more we would take to understand where we all went wrong  ……