thoughts, anecdotes and snapshots stumbled upon
Catharsis is Nirvana.
Cave drawings. Parchments heavy with emotion. Journals soaked in pale ink and vivid memories. An envelope braving the world in search of another. Splashes of paint rebelling against grey walls.
Black letters on a white screen spilling from my fingertips.
“Take care of yourself. You’re very important.”
That is what SV said as our conversation drew to a close. I had been rambling on for an hour about how horrible I felt lately, how the signs of depression seemed to be returning at a crucial point in my life. It felt good to vent to him; it always did. He always knew what to say.
And yet it’s those last words that really made a difference. He did not personalise it, did not smother the letters with a show of care; no ‘you’re important to me’ or ‘us’. Just important. Like an open ending to be interpreted as one wished, as if the whole world hid silently behind that last syllable. That my existence had a value that cannot be quantified by sheer numbers of aquientances, that maybe it extended to realms that I did not truly fathom.
I felt a ray of sunshine trickling in.
“When Parvaneh gives him a look studded with a long line of question marks and exclamation marks, the doctor sighs again in that way young doctors with glasses and plastic slippers and a stick up their bottom often do when confronted by people who do not even have the common bloody decency to attend medical school before they come to the hospital.”
This one sentence amused me more than anything else in the wonderful novel ‘A Man Called Ove‘ by Fredrik Backman. It has everything to do with the fact that on multiple occasions, I too have been that very young doctor (sans glasses) with a stick up my bottom who grows exasperated when the illiterate patients in front of me can’t comprehend the complications of a cerebrovascular accident or even pyelonephritis. Of course, the frustration was always fueled not so much by their ignorance as my incompetence in making them understand. But what truly amazed me on reading this was the realization that this phenomenon is not localized to our part of the world, with our overcrowded public hospitals and overburdened health system; that this is indeed a global phenomenon!
I remember my mother once warning me about how people go into medical school as humans and come out as robots, hardened by exposure and oblivious to common suffering. I looked at her then skeptically, but I realize it’s true – somewhere between dissecting cadavers and running around sleepless writing endless case notes, our souls crack from numbness; when frustration mounts it enlarges to a chasm that separates empathy from the methodological, the functional. And easily enough everything starts irritating us. ‘Wounded healers’.. the term stays with me a decade after reading Erich Segal’s Doctors.
Rising violence against doctors in India is a direct outcome of the same. Patients no longer lie docile when shows of irritation are meted out. Miscommunication is no longer pardonable. Time and again, the newspapers are filled with tales of health providers being manhandled for what is perceived as inadequate treatment. It is in times such as these that I pat myself on the back for opting to specialize in a non-clinical subject.
Neither side is to blame, really. It’s always lack of proper communication. Here’s hoping that both parties soon learn to empathize with the other’s plight in the future. Only then can we expect the untoward incidents to show a descending trend.
She laughed and laughed and laughed until the vowels were rolling across the walls and floors, as if they meant to do away with the laws of time and space
– Fredrik Backman
(A Man Called Ove)
Today it reminds me of a hat, the large brimmed hats women used to wear at some period during the olden days: hats like enormous halos, festooned with fruit and flowers and the feathers of exotic birds; hats like an idea of paradise, floating just above your head, a thought solidified.
– Margaret Atwood
(The Handmaid’s Tale)
This post speaks volumes (no, really; it’s one damn long write up) about the atrocities and trials faced by the average blogger. A humorous rendering of pent up frustrations, I could totally relate to the content. Maybe some of you too will. If not, just sit back and inhale this dose of literary laughing gas.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the obnoxiously clever, irreplaceable Brian of the Bonnywood Manor.
Once upon a time, in a land where the summer sun can kill your soul, on the patio of a restaurant bar where the libations eased the slow heat-death, a discussion took place betwixt a certain writer and a certain beloved person in the writer’s life. The conversation was initially mundane, with rambling whatnots about who would sleep with George Clooney if given the chance and whether or not a proper queso recipe should include diced onion. Then, in a rather alarming development, the dialogue became a wee bit accusatory, and non-sexual passions were enflamed. Nonetheless, some intriguing considerations arose, and I would be remiss in my responsibilities as a writer if I didn’t share this conversation with you.
(Note: Forthwith, the “writer” shall be known as “Hexom”, a character in one of my books, a simple ploy that should give the illusion that someone else has an issue, even…
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So my boyfriend complains of a splitting headache, and I graciously offer to massage his head in the event that he manages to procure a medicated balm to be smeared over his forehead.
He heads to a random medical store, and in his current affliction, stands there hesitating, trying to recollect what brand I had suggested.
The very understanding shop keeper nods, reaches down and hands across the counter a packet of condoms.
I was in a hurry to have breakfast yesterday morning. I dropped my heavy shoulder bag on to an adjacent chair in the common students’ mess, and half threw my sling bag on top of it, before heading to the counter. It was after I had settled down and started eating that both the bags fell to the floor with a loud thud.
I didn’t really think much of it. That is, until I got to our department and fished my phone out of the bag.
A huge crack grimaced at the top left corner, spidering and spreading across the screen all the way to the bottom. I felt a wave of devastation.
No, mine is not a brand new phone. It is exactly three years old, bought in September 2014 with my first earnings, during my internship. I still remember how many reviews I went through and how many specifications I obsessed over, before zeroing down on this one. And unlike most people I know, I made sure the protective case arrived within a week of purchase – I wasn’t going to take chances.
I’m proud to say that the phone did not let me down, it lived up to my expectations, caught all my good memories and also almost all of the photos on this blog. By the third year, I was starting to feel even a little haughty, as my friends’ handsets got disfigured, damaged or simply died, mine was still as good as new. Well, maybe it did have scratches over the edges , and maybe the skin peeled a little at the back, but to me it was perfect, a reminder that I too am capable of good choices once in a while.
They say, the software gets affected once the hardware is; Google tells me cracks will eventually cause dirt and sweat and water to leak in and cause collapse of the system. That’s just so sad.
But then, I remembered something else I read a few days back, a story by Osho about how nothing is sad news or good news, it’s just news. Anything that happens, we shouldn’t hurry to put them into categories. So I thought I’d do that now instead. My phone screen broke. That is all it is. It is neither good nor bad. Cool.
I’m currently searching online for wallpapers to camouflage the broken screen. This is actually fun. In a way.
Some choices are like that;
Amusing for a moment
And tragic for a lifetime.
I had forgotten this part of you.
The part that cannot decipher my unspoken words. The part that inadvertantly steps over my silent cries for attention, because maybe you don’t suspect that I’m this frail. The part that not even tries to realise that I am struggling behind the weak smiles and half hearted statements. The part that mistakes the pause at the end of my replies; what I put forth as a comma, you perceive as a period and think no more about my broken sentences.
How then, can I expect you to mend all else that’s broken about me?
I’m torn between desire and care.
Desire to see you waiting for me at the station in the wee hours of the morning, with even the sun yet to spy on us, and to ride home hugging you on the wide empty streets with the moonlight and stars for company.. But another self forbids me from waking you up; I know today is going to be another hectic day for you after numerous others and with many more to come..
I know you’re too. Torn between wanting to see me and yet having to succumb to the responsibilities weighing down on your eyelids; I know the fight inside you to be with me every day, even on the days when you’re not..
I know. Which is why I’m not going to wake you up at 4:00 like I promised. Today I’ll fight for once, take a cab and let you sleep.
Maybe this is what love is??
No.
I know it is.
🙂
