Mountain top

It was a week full of work. Spiced with disappointments, tempered with undeserved malice and just a little hint of a conspiracy. With a mind abuzz with multitude of thoughts, plans and unfinished agendas, I set out on a mid week break to Pachmarhi.
Pachmarhi is where I spent the first year of my life. My mother pointed out the little hut in the church premises where she lived when she was carrying. And the vicarage bungalow where they lived after I was born. As we went about the usual tourist's round up, from the cave temple of Lord Shiva, we saw the enticing peak of Chauragarh, about 1308 feet tall, proud amongst plateaus.
It took us less than a minute to collectively take a call to scale this peak. And early morning, before sunrise, we set off.
The road is long winded, some 1365 steps. Starts from the temple of the Gupt Mahadeo: a shrine in a crevice of a cave in a valley. And leads up to another hill, and then around another hill. Every time, out of breath, when we would glance up, the peak would still appear one more hill away. The fitter ones among us, my eleven year old for one, pranced up with abandon. I languished, took breaks and gathered myself up again to take to the climb.Slowly, all thoughts were spaced out by just one: somehow making it to the top. Every cell of the body just focused around making one more step.
The long circuitous climb seemingly unending climb ended with a breathtaking view of the plateau and the valleys. Worth every painful step.
I noticed something strange on the way down. I was 'in the moment'. It was strange lightness that started from a near empty mind and for most way we floated down effortlessly. The mountain had taken away all troublesome thoughts and filled it with an amazing lightness.
I think that is precisely why temples were built on hilltops. While the devotees inch up to meet their deity, they shed all their petty thoughts and get into communion with the infinite and timeless. And concentrate on what is important: the next step and then the step after that. Because that is the only way to make it to the top.

Listen

Its a usual scene. Patient starts a long winded story about the vague pain in her tummy and ill defined weakness and then the tingling she feels in her fingertips and then the swelling in her hands and feet. We listen, carefully filtering out the bits we need to put together a passable and plausible diagnosis and forget the rest. In the beginning, we listen: carefully, silently and a little anxiously. Not wanting to miss a single clue hidden in that long history. Then, eventually, one look and the opening line of the story tells us all that is worth knowing. We attack the prescription and fill it with pills of various shapes and sizes, and summon the next in line.
Slowly, we forget what it is like to listen. We stop listening, first to our patients, then to others around us. Our world shrinks so much that it contains only us. We cannot talk or think of anything or anyone beyond our grand selves. How we put in long hours and toiled to become the great doctors that we are. How no one understands how difficult our lives are compared to those of lesser mortals.
Eventually, we stop listening to ourselves. We go about life, like automatons. Hearing just enough to keep us going through the rut of diagnosis and treatment. Never stopping to listen. Never waiting to listen.
The word SILENT, contains the same letters as LISTEN. It would do us a lot of good  if we sometimes listen, not with the intent of diagnosing or replying, but only with the intent of understanding. Because, as the saying goes, knowledge speaks;but wisdom listens.