I don't remember who taught me to never leave loose ends. It must be my mother, who taught me values. I don't know if that made a better person out of me. I know it did not make a happier person out of me anyway.
There was that patient, who was referred to me by an old friend and colleague, now in US for years. She needed something done desperately. I saw her, and made all arrangements to get her treatment underway. She never came back. When I did not hear from her for more than a month, I wrote to my friend, because it bothered me a lot. I got an answer after a few weeks. She had had to go out of state, and had got it done there. She was OK. There had been no deficiency in services in my institute that had made her go away.
Then there was that old intern, who had done postgraduation in another subject in some other institute. Now he was back. He wanted me to give him a certificate so that he could apply for residency in US. He wanted it urgently. I thought of the struggle a student has to make to get into US and the stress it causes. I told him to get the certificate typed and printed as soon as he could, and I would sign it immediately. I told him where he could contact me over the next two days, so that he would not have to spend time trying to find me. You might have guessed - he never came back.
Then there was that editor of a journal that runs on money deducted from our salaries without our permission for the deduction. Something like Jizya tax, perhaps? Anyway, that is besides the point. There were a few errors in the management of one of my articles. I wrote to the editor, who promised to 'revert to me in a fortnight'. After two fortnights passed, I wrote a polite reminder. Many more fortnights have passed without any answer.
There have been many more such loose ends. I would like to have them wound up, because they remain active in my mind, like a software program that keeps running in the background and consumes RAM of a computer. I would like my mind freed to do other things better. I wonder if no one taught these loose enders like my mother taught me. Some of them have been my students. I wonder why I could not instill in them values, if not directly, then at least by setting a good example. Or perhaps the bottom line is to get whatever one wants from life and move on, not bothering what one leaves in one's wake?
