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Friday, November 2, 2012

Hands & The Man

Amod called. He is a childhood friend for me. For others, he is a story writer Amod Dev Bhattarai.  Thanks to the ‘superb call quality of the phone call, I could make out some of the words he said,“Brazesh…hissssss…editor……mute…..New Yorker magazine….silence….get together..hissss….Bhoomi, Lazimapt….noise..Tues….silence….2nd……hissss….Sept……five..hisssss…..thirty….silence.” 
And, then the line disconnected. Cool enough, rest was for me to put two and two together. After all if you can understand what is being said, the purpose of the communication is achieved. People blame our telecom service providers for nothing. It’s a miracle in itself that a person  from almost 17 km away was able to convey his message to me.  

I thought I should get some information about the person I was going to meet. I googled “editor, New Yorker Magazine” and   information came up. I went through it till I was confident that I had enough to converse for at least 20 minutes. When I reached the venue, I was in for a pleasant surprise. The person was not the editor but the former editor of The New Yorker. I had familiarised myself with someone else but was facing Daniel Manekar. Even an over optimist like me could not refrain from cursing the telephone service then. 
Nonethless, meeting Daniel Manekar  was quite pleasant. We talked about general interests. I talked about my love for football. Manekar said Americans only love high-scoring games. His other point was more interesting. Soccer, he said, restricted use of hands. Americans find it unacceptable as they are proud of being inventors and creators. 
I found his remarks to be very interesting. So it is quite natural that Americans are obsessed with hands. Their hands are behind many things. Some find it beneficial,some not, depending upon their ideology, thinking and perspective. 
Indeed, hands play a vital role in our life. To eat, drink, create masterpieces of art, communicate, salute and to make love would be a disaster if hands could not be used. Think about it, we would be deprived of so many wonderful things. Our pace of development would not be what it is today if our hands were restricted. We operate machines which change the face of the world with hands. We write history, literature and paint with hands. But, like everything else in the world, there are two sides of this coin too. Improper use of hands creates havoc in life. People have also invented weapons of mass destruction with hands. Hands sow the seeds, cultivate and grow foods. They are responsible for surgery but they can strangle too. 
Ironically, hands are also credited for things they are not responsible for. A person committing a crime gets caught “red handed” even if he has not used hands to commit the crime. A person is ignored and his hands are accredited instead—”Hands behind the success,” for example. However, if we forget the negativity of what some hands have done, we should be happy that we have hands. That’s why the use of hands should be practiced with utmost care and sensitivity. They can both heal and hurt. 
Hence, those obsessed with the use of their hands need to be more sensitive and cautious. 

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