By Korean filmmaker Kim ki-dun

ONCE in a way to stay sane and level-headed I run away to see one of the ESG’s Cinephile Club’s Thursday films at the Maquinez Palace auditorium! Last Thursday (May 16) it was Korean master filmmaker’s “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring’ (2023 film, already screened at several film festivals); if it comes for this year’s IFFI be sure to catch it.
It’s a film with one of those timeless messages of life. That though Mother Earth may be pristinely beautiful to fall in love with, we human of the species know a lot about lust but not love…and in the name of love we kill one another and then live to punish, torture ourselves!
So we have this impossibly dreamy, inspirational floating monastery somewhere in mountain country in Korea, where lives a master of Buddhist philosophy and well, all kinds of people drop by here to meet him…a woman turns up to leave her baby son behind, or a mother comes with a daughter whose soul is sick (it will not get cured until it unites with the body)…take it from there.
IF you want to understand about how mysteriously the law of karma works, this is your film of education par excellence! Except that I wondered somewhere along the way if filmmaker Kim ki-duk, while growing up as a little boy took pleasure catching baby fish, frogs and snakes …tie stones to them and then laugh while the wild creatures struggled with their handicap? In the film some of the creatures of the wild die, unable to get rid of their stony burden gifted to them by a child. Yes, our little friend takes delight in seeing his helpless victims struggling to survive handicapped. Power over the powerless!
Anyway, his master finds how his protégé entertains himself and ticks him off, ties a stone on the little boy’s back and tells him to go and free the creatures who had tied down with stones – for if he fails to liberate them the creatures will and he will have to carry the stones around his own heart lifelong.
Our unhappy young friend manages to free the frog but not the baby fish or the snake. Later karma collects from him in the form of a young woman he falls madly in love and betrays him — he kills her! Returns from the cruel world back to his master’s monastery seeking escape and redemption; but the cops turn up for him. How his spiritual master saves the angry little abandoned boy he had brought up to manhood makes for some remarkable chilling education.
THE question arises: Do we really raise our children to be cruel to the less powerful? Indeed, take sadistic pleasure in being cruel? Our own Hindi daku potboiler films reflect this all the time! So then why do we complain when our feelings, thoughts and deeds rebound on us in later years as we pay the price for our sins of omission and commission or call it karma? The law of karma applies to those who choose to be cruel or kind – what is parental upbringing and education all about?
Suffering is the badge of cruel human beings who take delight in inflicting cruelty on the poor, vulnerable, helpless, powerless! The film’s analogy in the seasons which come and go and brilliantly enshrined in the film for life’s experiences match the seasons of springtime, then summertime, fall and winter time – we make life hell in paradise or paradise in hell, depending on how hard we work on ourselves. How we weather the temptations of making life difficult for others who have done us no harm whatsoever! How high or lowdown are our standards of life and living?
In this sense we become our own worst enemies or friends and live to learn this for the law of karma is punishing when it comes to outgrowing passion, anger, fear and more as we learn forgiveness before we pass on to another life…all this comes across with fine poignancy in Korean filmmaker Kim ki-Duk’s remarkable film “Spring, Summer, Fall…and Spring.” Go see!’

THE `ART’ OF MEDICINE

“The `Art’ of Medicine” is a book written by Dr Irineu Antao Pereira, it’s the “essential guide to positive experiences in healthcare.” For some time now my left ankle had been giving me trouble and pain and I was trying to make out if it is just the varicose veins (of obesity) or cardiac insufficiency, maybe just old age catching up! A friend suggested I stop suffering philosophically and make an appointment with the good Dr Irineu Antao Pereira, who’s perhaps Goa’s only specialist in problems of the arteries, veins, capillaries.
I made the appointment and met Dr Pereira. It’s not often that one meet a medical super specialist who actually agrees that the healthcare industry no longer puts patients first! Dr Pereira agreed with me when I fleetingly said doctors no longer give a damn for patients…it’s the changing healthcare system which is forever shortchanging patients perhaps, he said.
He gave me a copy of his afore-mentioned book which is dedicated to an analysis of the components of healthcare and a step-by-step guide to the “design, development and delivery of delightful PXM 3.0” – a healthcare philosophy he practices. It was always patient first and that is how it should be for healthcare providers however great they may be in their field of specialization or so he thinks and tries to live up to it.
According to this good doctor it’s humanely impossible to separate “professional responsibilities” from “personal responsibilities” – both should complement each other and it will determine the performance and influence patient experience to be delightful! Well, to say the least here, Dr Irineu Pereira is on a mission to “Make Healthcare, Great Again!”
Apart from his own private practice he guides healthcare professionals in being SMART versions of themselves and has interesting Nirvana, Retire Young and Mentoring programs at Signum Vitalis. He also guides hospitals in design and implementation of PX
M 3.0 and cost-leadership strategies. If you’re in healthcare perhaps you need to clue yourself up with his book!
He is treating me for my failing knees and ankles, although he told me to also consult an orthopedic doctor…interestingly, do you what the total length of blood vessels there are in your body (capillaries, veins, arteries) in body beautiful? A total length of 100,000 km in an adult human and that’s more than twice the distance around earth at the equator!
This is to say our bodies wax and wane with our blood vessels…mine have become so lax or concretized that I dare say that’s what’s bothering my knees and ankles, what may only be called arthritis or cardiac insufficiency. Must find out more about what afflicts me next time I’m with Dr Irineau Pereira at his Good Shepherd Clinic at Patto, Panjim. I learn from all accounts that he’s a medical storyteller, mentor for surgical super-specialists, cardiovascular surgeon and describes himself as a “Sunday Chef!”
ON that note it’s avjo, selamat datang, poite verem, au revoir, arrivedecci, hasta la vista, vachun yeta here for now.

—Mme Butterfly