PGR’s blog

 In 1997 I joined SAFCO (Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company) and was posted in Ibn Baytar Plant (One of the plants of SAFCO named after Arabic botanist and herbalist Ibn Al-Baytar) as an Ammonia plant process engineer. A problem that I initially encountered as an expatriate was communication with police and government agencies in Jubail as their spoken English was simply awful. In Baytar plant building where I had my office, I had a young and dynamic Saudi Technician named Essa Habib Al-Khalaf who worked in our Inspection department. His job  involved helping and assisting our Inspection Engineers in process Inspection of vessels and equipment during normal activities and Plant turnaround (A major plant maintenance activity under taken every 2-3 years  after full shut down of all process plants). Essa Habib  became my lingua franca and intermediary whenever I had needs to communicate with government agencies.

He was an amazing young Saudi Boy of 27 years and bore a cheerful countenance for everyone in Baytar building irrespective of caste, creed and nationality. Since I didn't have any car during my early days, Essa  took it as an honour to ride me in his car whenever my errands required him to do so. He respected educational qualifications, admired  degrees and often taunted me to give him an engineering degree certificate so that he could pursue a more prosperous career. Essa  was a dynamite of energy and enthusiasm and had a curiosity to learn more from whoever worked with him. He knew how to put his mind, heart, soul and intellect even in the smallest task and was loved by one and all.

Often during office hours, he would knock at my door holding a cup of tea in his right hand and shout from there with winking eyes and waxing lips '"PGR, Are you still alive!". If I showed an inviting tone, he would enter my room and I too joined him for a tête-à-tête with a tea. Sometimes his teasing incantation "PGR, Are you still alive!" annoyed me a bit and I used to shout back'"I will follow you".  We became very close and talked about family matters and I often enjoyed this cross-cultural interaction with an open heart to empathize with his concerns. One good routine habit Essa  had was that he rang his wife at regular intervals during office hours. He was a totally committed husband and family man.

 In the year 2004, Ibn Baytar plant turnaround was in full progress. All of us were on 12 hours duty and were steeped in our scheduled tasks which included process Inspection, catalyst change out, cleaning of Heat Exchangers, Columns etc. Essa  was assigned the inspection of some equipment in Ammonia plant. We were veering towards the end of the tiring turnaround and were boxing up many opened equipment for plant start up activities.

On March 1st 2004, a telephonic message came to the control room of Ammonia plant from Essa 's wife at 8 PM that her husband didn't call her at their normal appointed hour of 7 PM. The operator who himself was busy consoled her that possibly he could be in the thick of some tasks in hand. At 9 PM, his wife called up again with concern and urged the attendee that she needed to talk with Essa  immediately. Pager system sounded all over the plant asking Essa  to report to control room. There was no answer. A bit concerned, some operators and his colleagues made a search around the plant and they couldn't locate him. Security people checked the computerized plant entry-exit punching system and confirmed that he had not gone out of the plant.

Now there was a real alarm. His colleagues confirmed that he was assigned inspection duty for the 60 M high CO2 Absorber column meant for absorption of CO2 during the purification step of our synthesis gas. There was no permit issued on this vessel in the afternoon for any inspection activities though one of the middle manways (Manhole for man entry) was still open pending clearance for closure. An operator with the assistance of safety personnel climbed up the absorber to have a look inside the open manway. They entered the vessel wearing breathing apparatus and search light. To their horror, they found Essa  lying inside the vessel unconscious bearing a blue face. Emergency rescue acted fast in lifting him down. Doctors declared him as dead.

Investigations revealed that nitrogen from the downstream nitrogen filled methanator reactor (connected to the absorber by a control valve) had backed up into the absorber column during start up activities and filled the whole CO2 absorber. Confined space vessel entry into absorber was normally permitted only after a permit, ascertaining oxygen level in the absorber and under the presence of a hole watch. My friend Essa  in his over enthusiasm and curiosity to know the progress of the work assigned to him had entered the vessel without communicating to control room, without a work permit and without an oxygen meter mandatory for all equipment entry and had thus made a tryst with terminator Nitrogen.

Nitrogen is a silent killer gas. Though the normal air we breathe contains 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, nitrogen is not a benign gas. After just one or two breaths of nitrogen, the oxygen concentration (or partial pressure of oxygen) in our lungs would fall so low that all our oxygen already in the bloodstream rushes into the lungs in a sacrificial act to maintain oxygen supply to brain but alas that too would soon be exhaled out. As a result, we simply stop breathing. Since nitrogen is odorless and colorless, our senses provide no protection against nitrogen-enriched atmospheres. This was what had happened to Essa . As pure nitrogen is heavier compared to air, it had just stayed inside the absorber. He simply didn't realize that he was navigating in nitrogen when he made that deadly entry in the dark.

The fatality made 2004 a watershed year for SAFCO breaking its impeccable safety records. A loving family lost its lone supporter and SAFCO lost a soul that stirred with passion and compassion.

Many a day, drowned in the drudgery of daily routine, I hear a knock on my door and a naughty voice-"PGR, Are you still alive ?"

Yes, my  buddy, with a lake in my eyes.

I invite your attention to a new blogger 'Sathya. He rather led me to his blogs when he posted a comment in my GB. I find his blogs fascinating and captivating. He is perhaps the only kin to me in iland.

http://indiarocks.rediffiland.com/scripts/xanadu_home_view.php

I liked his blogs, 'The night I died' and "Saved by an Angel". He is a breed like me who has made some sensible thoughts about death. Our vanity vanishes when we think of the final void.

Death for me is an inspiration to live my moments. There is not a single day in my life that passes without a few moments of meditation on death. Death has defined my goals and priorities.

Remembering that I am going to die soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything ? all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that we are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

The first blog I posted in iland was titled "A Moment called Death". I think that was one of my best scribbles though it is hiding under musings (I don't know why it doesn't get tagged along with my other blogs.)

In the year 1988, barely a few months after my wedding, my uncle in Bombay telephoned and requested me to put up a marriage ad in a popular Malayalam daily, seeking suitable proposals for his son, i.e. my cousin, Satish Nair. My cousin was quite a handsome chap but had unfortunately undergone a kidney transplant in Bombay hospital when he was studying for CA. My uncle being an honest guy told me that I should not hide this fact in the marriage ad. So I drafted one accordingly which read something like this "A smart, enterprising, handsome boy, 29, charted accountant, seeks suitable alliances from good looking Nair girls. Family background immaterial. The boy has undergone kidney transplant but is keeping fine health." My uncle gave me the responsibility of receiving the mails, screening the proposals, checking the horoscope, getting clarifications, etc. and told me to forward only the sieved ones to him.

Well, people shun taking risks, especially in health matters, and as expected we got only a handful of proposals. Out of it only three passed the preliminary qualification tests. I forwarded them to my uncle and asked him to send my cousin to Kerala for 'Bride seeing' and to proceed further with the proposals.

My cousin landed in Kerala a month later. There was a proposal from the daughter of an Army officer stationed in Punjab and we wanted to explore it first. The girl's father communicated his inconvenience to come to Kerala but assured me that he would make obligatory arrangements for our visit to see the girl.

Our tryst with the girl was scheduled at around 11 a.m. on a Saturday. The girl belonged to a place called Thiruvillamala near Trichur. The place is well known for its scenic splendor and verdant topography. Unfortunately a bus strike handicapped our initial plans and to our further dismay it turned out to be a day of torrential, incessant rain. Every drop was like a thick needle that could prick the skin. A rescheduling of the trip looked bleak as the girl's house could not be contacted over telephone. We therefore decided to venture on our bride hunt from Cochin. We first got into a truck going to Trichur. It took us nearly three hours to reach Trichur. It was already 1 p.m. Being anxious about our rendezvous, we got into a lorry going to Thiruvillamala side and asked the driver to drop us off at the main junction. We never imagined that the route would be so tortuous. It took another three hours for us to reach Thiruvillamala Junction. The girl's father had given me some directions. We enquired about the location of the house at a coffee shop. They told us that the place was located far interior. Due to the nonstop rain, landslide and undulating mountainous terrain, no taxi or autorickshaw was ready to take us to the girl's house. Finally a jeep driver yielded to our plea at an exorbitant sum. By that time, my cousin looked drained of all his energy.

It was almost 5 pm and dusk had set in early as happens on a rainy day. It took another forty-five minutes of nerve shattering roller coaster ride to reach our destination. Our journey uphill resembled events from Jack and Jill's nursery rhyme. We had nearly broken our crowns. At a precarious turn the jeep's wheel got stuck in the mud and came to a wobbly halt. The jeep now stood skewed perilously and my cousin who had bravely occupied the front seat was by now hanging for his dear life. The driver kept on ranting about the devastation caused along the way and rain was the villain everywhere. He scared us with stories of many deaths during the previous days and of an epidemic running wild in that village. Fear gripped my soul and I wondered whether we were heading for a funeral service or a bride seeing. The driver of the jeep knew the girl's family and extolled her brilliant academic record. Talking further revealed that she was the only girl in that village who had passed matriculation in her third attempt.

At last we reached the girl's residence. It was a traditional 'Nalukettu' type house that one could often see in the Malabar region. The humble relatives of the girl had been eagerly waiting for us since morning. We apologized for our egregious delay and soon we were escorted into a small dining room. I warmed up the ambience introducing my cousin to the girl's relatives waxing on his ebullient personality and illustrious pedigree. My cousin and I had earlier come to an understanding regarding certain non-verbal signals in case he did not like the girl. We waited eagerly for the girl's appearance. At last she opened a door and came in with a tremor. I wondered whether there was a minor quake as my cousin suddenly grabbed my knee beneath the dining desk. We almost swooned at the sight of the lumbering leviathan lady who completely eclipsed her puny relatives encircling her. My wife had given me a preliminary checklist to test whether the girl had any handicap. This was likely, as we had explicitly advertised that the boy had undergone kidney transplant. So I requested her for a glass water to assess her movement. She rocked the floor once again and convinced me that she could not be lame. It also allowed me to observe her dark hair that flowed like a cascade on her ebony back. I cracked a joke to see her teeth and my cousin later told me that her 'Close up' smile haunted him for several months. I then asked her something in a low voice to test her hearing and her reply made my cousin partially deaf. Soon my cousin gave me the signal and I quickly gobbled the banana fries and gulped down the tea. The girl's mother pleaded us to eat more as we had missed our lunch. We politely declined it saying that our stomachs were full. I told the relatives that we would convey our decision in a week's time.

Outside, the nature still looked sinister and was waiting to resume her whiplash. A pregnant black cloud suddenly burst out and rain bombarded on us like bullets. We rushed to our Jeep and asked the driver to take us straight to Trichur. It was mid night by the time we reached Cochin.

Satish gave up the prospect of a second 'bride seeing' and returned to Bombay. A week later I received a letter from him, which said that he had a recurring nightmare after his return to Bombay. He narrated the nightmare as follows- "The result of that particular trekking trip is that the dame that we saw there appears in my nightmare complete with her fat rotund body and long protruding teeth and vicious grin. A garland in her hand and egged on by her relatives she chases us, accompanied by the acoustics like 'Nadaswaram', 'Thavil', 'Aarp' and 'Korava' (just to give it a touch of authenticity). She chases us until we are cornered into a jasmine adorned wedding altar. The bride now stands facing us in a suggestive blushing posture. The crux and climax of that nightmare is that she lifts up the wedding garland and adorns it on your neck instead of mine. I am still perspiring from that chase"

Well, my cousin coolly passed on that nightmare more to my wife than to me. That was the last time I ever accompanied any one on a 'Bride hunt'.

Glossary:

Nalukettu-The old houses of Kerala invariably consists of four rooms joined together in a rectangular form with a central courtyard, corridors, massive pillars and dormer windows. These structures are called Nalukettu (Four blocks)

Aarp- Male Ululation made during festive occasions

Nadaswaram- It is one of the most popular classical instruments of South India and the world’s loudest non-brass acoustic instrument. It is a wind instrument similar to the Shehnai but larger with a large flaring bell, sometimes metal

Thavil- Thavil is a barrel shaped percussion instrument from South India. It is used in folk music and Carnatic music, often accompanying the nadaswaram. The thavil and the nadaswaram are essential ingredients of traditional festivals and ceremonies in South India

Korava- Female Ululation made during festive occasions

Have you ever been a victim of adversity? An accident that crippled your life? A disease that paralyzed your movements?  A death that froze your heart?  A divorce that numbed your emotions?  Take a moment and dig within you. Are you a victim or a victor?

In May 1984, my cousin Satish Nair was writing his CA examination in Bombay.  Suddenly he collapsed and was rushed to the Bombay hospital. It was diagnosed that both his kidneys had been congenitally shrinking and he needed an immediate kidney transplant for survival. His father who retired from service on the same day later donated a kidney to his only son. Satish regained his health in a span of six months and successfully completed his CA Exam.

Satish by nature being an enterprising and hardworking guy set up a consulting business and made a flourishing growth in it. Meanwhile, he took the initiative to set up the first cadaver Kidney Bank in India.

As his doctor assured him that he could get married, a matrimonial ad was given in a Newspaper stating all facts. Alas! No partner could be found. In 1993, a girl volunteered to marry him. We were thrilled by her act of sacrifice. However, she seemed more interested in his bank deposits and business ventures than in him. Slowly, yet horrendously, Satish realized that his life partner had expected him to die soon so that she could secure all his assets. Satish had become once again a victim. A legal battle won him a divorce. But the inner battle resulted in the failure of his transplanted kidney. As a result, he underwent another kidney transplant, this time the donor being his mother. Unfortunately, it also did not last long. Satish is now surviving on dialysis thrice a week.

In all these fights against a battalion of adversities, my cousin exhibited magnificent emotional strength as if he had transcended his suffering.  His defeats appeared more triumphant than his victories. The grinding wheel of adversity only sharpened his mental blades. He became more genial and cheerful and started writing humorous articles to a famous web site. His smile in rough weather taught us that even in the depth of winter, there lies within us an invincible summer.

During a vacation to India, we stayed with Satish in Bombay. One night, we all had a heart to heart conversation. I asked Satish how he still maintained buoyancy despite one defeat after another.

He invited us to the kitchen. Satish then demonstrated to us an inspirational story that we heard for the first time. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high flame. In one he put carrots, in another he placed eggs, and in the last he poured ground coffee beans. We were wondering what he was up to. After a few minutes, he turned off the burners - fished the carrots out - put them in a bowl. He then pulled the eggs out and placed them in another bowl. He stirred the coffee and poured it into a mug.

Turning to us he asked, ” What do you see?”

I said, “Carrots, eggs, and coffee.”

He first asked us to feel the carrots. We found them soft. He then asked us to break the egg. After peeling off the shell, it was just a hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked us to sip the coffee. We smiled, as we savored its rich aroma.

I then questioned, “What does it mean?”

He explained that each one of them had undergone the same adversity - boiling water ' but each had reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong and hard. After the torture in boiling water, it became soft and weak. The egg had been fragile with its surrounding slim shell sheltering its liquid interior. Sitting through the boiling water, its core had hardened. The coffee beans were however, unique. They had transformed the water itself. We spotted the victor.

When adversity knocks on your door, how would you respond? Are you the carrot that seems hard, but with pain and adversity, becomes soft and loses strength?

Are you the egg, which starts off with a malleable heart? Are you a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a divorce, or a layoff will become hardened and stiff.

Or are you like the coffee bean that changes the hot water that is causing it pain? The hotter the water, the tastier the coffee.

The aroma of Satish coffee is an inspiration for all of us. A victim of shrinking kidneys, a victor in kidney transplant; a victim of marriage, a victor in his business; a victim of a failed kidney, a victor in founding a kidney bank; A VICTIM IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD ' A VICTOR BY HIMSELF. My cousin is an exceptional example of proactivity I dwelled on in my last post.

Aristotle once said "The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper". Our life shrinks or expands depending on our courage. Very often we change with the environment instead of being change agents who catalyse external factors that influence our lives.

Do you want to be a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

(Note:-The Carrot story has been trimmed, polished and reworded here to suit my theme)

If I go down my memory lane, 80's were a period that is vividly green in my memory. That was the time I had a wide network of friends who shared my interests. Among them were two writers. One was a novelist of great repute who wrote novels under the penname "Vilasini" (His real name was MK Menon. His novel "Avakasikal' or 'Inheritors' is the longest novel written in Indian Literature as per Limca book of Records. He passed away in 1994) and the other was a short story writer named Jayanarayanan who was a winner of Sahithya Academy award and was a well-known translator of many Latin American poems and short stories. Incidentally, both were middle-aged bachelors. I used to meet Jayanarayanan more often as he stayed in Cochin while Menon was settled in a palatial bungalow in Trichur.

Like many writers, Jayanarayanan was a morose character and his friends had a tough time to tune to his frequent emotional outbursts and stubborn spirit. I happened to be among the few who could tolerate his temper. He worked as a ration officer in the Civil Supplies Department. For him, job was leisure and literature was his prime passion. He had a delinquent attitude towards job and sometimes he used to take many days leave to immerse himself in writing. He suffered from a strange disease, a lack intestinal absorption of Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is essential for the production of blood and as a result he would often relapse into an anemic condition and had to undergo blood transfusion to balance the deficiency. Jayanarayanan had no close relatives. Whenever Jayanarayan required blood transfusion, a distant nephew of him would appear out of the blue to seek my help. As my blood group matched his, I donated him blood whenever he suffered from such bouts of blood deficiency.

1988 was a prolific period for him and many of his stories and articles appeared in popular literary journals in Kerala. During those periods he stayed away from his office. I often warned him that his job was his bread and butter and the remunerations he received from his writings would neither be steady nor would it sustain his future needs. He never listened to me and bragged about his ambitious plans and several invitation offers from various editors. He was a perfectionist and as a result his output dwindled. The earnings from his literary pursuits became scanty to support his needs. He started borrowing money from me and I obliged him on many occasions though with an admonition that he should go back to his job. One day a notification came to him that he had been transferred to Idukki, a remote district in Kerala, and that sealed whatsoever interest he had in his job. He never even bothered to report to the new location. A year passed and he was facing termination from his job. I then took a stern step and refused to advance him cash.

As I mentioned earlier, novelist MK Menon in Trichur was a mutual friend of ours. He was a former director of the French press agency AFP, in Singapore and was a gentleman to the core. One day I received a letter from Menon pleading me to meet him urgently. I rushed to Trichur. Jayanarayanan had written a letter full of expletives about me and it was a tirade to tarnish my character. He didn't even spare Menon and described him as a snobbish writer whose his literary works as nothing but kitsch. I returned home visibly upset and straight away cut off my bond with Jayanarayanan.

A month later, one evening his nephew knocked at my door again and informed me that Jayanaraynan was critically ill and he needed blood transfusion urgently. Despite protests from my relatives, I went to the hospital. My friend looked timid and tired like a toothless lion. His illness had mellowed his tongue. I donated blood and gave him a good sum to cover his medical expenses. I did not make further enquiry about him as the wound he had inflicted was still raw in my mind.

A few months later the same nephew knocked at my door and asked me if I could accompany him to the autorikshaw parked outside my house. There was big container on its top. He informed me that my friend Jayanarayanan had instructed him to deliver it to me. I unloaded and opened it. It contained hundreds of precious classics from his collection and the books were a gift to me as a gratitude to my genuine gesture of friendship. Well, the man succumbed to his illness two months later. But the books still adorn and light up my bookshelf. It taught me that only in arithmetic it is true that a negative multiplied by a positive is a negative. But in the arithmetic of life, it is a bold positive and I still believe in it. Reciprocate unkindness with kindness, the result will be kindness. Reciprocate ingratitude with gratitude, the product will be gratitude. As Edward Gibbon said "Revenge is profitable but gratitude is expensive".

The event taught me that 'Gratitude is the mother of all virtues'. It is a magical elixir that unlocks the fullness of life. It turns enmity into friendship, denial into acceptance and confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.