HAVE WE LEARNT ANYTHING AT ALL?

 

HAVE WE LEARNT ANYTHING AT ALL?

We are all still living in the uncertainty of the pandemic. The waves are lashing on to the shores, one after the other, bringing with them untold horror, disease, death and endless tragedies. Every family has at least one sad tale to tell, one big scare and a punch in the face that have thrown the economic wheels of the family into disarray, puncturing the routine with holes that will take years to close.

The last fifteen months have kept all of us away from our normal lives and routine. The new normal concept, unacceptable at the beginning, has now got firmly rooted in our day, night and heart. Social gatherings, get-togethers, parties, engagements and weddings, road-side meets, coffee dates and general loitering have become a thing of the past. As the pandemic settled down in our vicinity, life began taking weird turns and twists. The inability of medical science, virologists and the statisticians working on algorithms to understand what was happening gave the pandemic a good head start and the world reeled under it.

All that we knew was each person, big or small, male or female, adult or child, was a pariah. Anybody and everybody could bring you the killer disease or be killed himself. Anybody, even you, could change your body forever or end the only life you have. The power of the virus was to each one, to destroy or get destroyed which isolated each one into his or her own bubble. We lost trust over our own hands as much as we feared the hands of our loved ones. Hand-shakes, hugs and physical expressions became expressions of fear and we reeled in horror if someone even attempted to. 

Social distancing came home to roost and our homes became isolated dens as each one took shelter in his own world, staying physically away from the other. The interactions shifted to mobile phones, zoom apps and other social media. As the disease raged on, as our mind and thoughts got trapped in the fear of death and disease, our enthusiasm waned, gloominess took over and we collectively retreated in our shells, far away from the people we loved, depended on, laughed and cried with, didn’t care about or even hated.

I remember a radio channel had started a campaign imploring us to make that phone call to the one whom we had broken up with or hurt or had negativity about. It was to make one realize the importance of forgiving and moving on in these uncertain times. I wonder how many of us had the courage to pick that phone and make that call!

.As days passed, the pandemic took a brutal turn. It was like being alive for that moment and that moment alone! The truth and inevitability of our mortality was never starker than this. Nobody could predict the future as the present became dangerously volatile. 

Faced with this ultimate truth, I wonder then, did we pause and reflect on all the happy and sad moments and the people who made it. Did we look at the broken relationships and the broken hearts lying on the way where we were now. Did we remember forgotten bonds, lost friendships and tattered strings of attachments as we struggled to find sanity in the insane pandemic.

Did we not think of repairing what lay broken in these highly unpredictable time. Did we not want to empty our hearts of all the negativity we had collected over the years. Pushed to a corner, did we not think of this opportunity life had presented to us to rise above pettiness that characterizes human nature.

Here was the opportunity to undo what had inadvertently happened or even deliberately, here was the time to heal, here was the time to forgive, forget or ask for forgivance, the time to unburden our heart. Here was the time to rise above our clay feet, to evolve and make peace with ourselves and those who had threatened or actually derailed our peace. The unpredictability of tomorrow would make our today that much stronger and allow us find the medicine to relieve us of that nagging pain, that scratch on the heart or that hatred that had hurt us more than the person to whom it was directed.

In spite of the precarious situation we were in, as infallible humans, I think we did not overcome this huge challenge to our heart. We did not summon the guts needed to forgive someone who had hurt us and we did not move on. Our hearts continued to be filled with the weight all the negativity we had been carrying for so many years.

Even as we faced the unseen dangerous enemy, the courage to grow out of pettiness never came to us. The strength to rise above ourselves and expand our heart to be large enough to tame our ego was never summoned. The fear was there but the threat of dying by the disease seemed empty to all. It was for someone else, in some other place, and we would be spared.

I wonder then, what has the pandemic really taught us. It has brought home the truths about austerity, materialism- a failed concept, work from anywhere but your office, health is wealth, money matters don’t matter that much, vacations and luxuries can wait, life in a bubble and my small circle of loved ones! But it didn’t really teach us to grow above ourselves spiritually and philosophically into that realm where we can find peace and true happiness by lightening our hearts and conquering our egos.

We continue to remain humans and not evolved humans, even in the face of annihilation by disease.

Pandemic has much to teach, but have we learnt anything at all?

Find out your own answers, change if not yet changed, make that call, heal that scratch on the heart and hold on to that elusive peace of mind.

Dr. Reina Khadilkar

 

WRITER’S BLOCK

It’s been ages, literally ages that my pen flowed with words that clumped together to make sense, sentences and sensibility. Words that came to me in happy times, sad times and most of all, difficult times. Words that helped me to laugh in happiness and words that made me cry copious tears of nostalgia, sadness, pain and longing. Words that lifted that unbearable weight of expectations, lost opportunities, broken hearts, regrets and guilts. Words that were more often than not, cathartic, healing and peaceful. I had found sanctuary from the weight I carried in my heart in the essays I wrote, stories I published and articles I typed and stored. My own happy space. My inner world. My strength and my weakness, my conviction and my honesty, my mirror to my thoughts.

Last one and a half years have been incredibly difficult, scary and life-changing, not just for me but for the whole world. The situation has worsened with no end in sight and time is stuck in the sinking sand of fever and cough, Cytokine storm, Remdesivir shortage, Oxygen leakages, hospital beds, ICU, quarantine, non-availability of vaccines, deaths and innumerable burning pyres clouding the sight and scarring the heart. Each day that comes brings with it new fears, new rules of survival and new hope as the day passes by and you are relieved to be alive at the end of it. All one can think of as one retires into the dark night is, will I be alright tomorrow, or will I get up with fever and body-ache, or with a loss of sense of smell or worst, with breathlessness and air hunger! The mind and the thoughts are completely ensnared into the dark pit of the pandemic and all one can do is hold on to that rapidly desiccating thread of faith and hope that, you will be spared.

The emergence of various strains, the deathly clutch of the black, and now white and even yellow fungus, the rising death toll, the gory, inhumane sight of plastic cloth covered bodies floating in the most sacred of our rivers, the Ganga and all this beamed into our homes by the shrill of the media  who raise their decibels with each bad news as though the intensity in their high-pitched performance will shake the foundations of humanity and scare the country into cowering back into their tiny cubbyholes, afraid to see even the daylight. Believe me, they are right in what they think they are doing and how they are doing. With every high-pitched performance, there is a collective gasp of fear as we reel back with untold horror and fear of death and disease. The voices coming from behind the mikes make sure that our hearts continue to beat rapidly, our belief in the system to care for us shatter into smithereens and our hopes traumatized beyond repair.

Each day brings in new rules for us to follow making us unsure of where we are headed. The powers that are keep making new resolutions and those out of power keep opposing them, unmindful of how it is affecting the very people who have given them the high seat. The bickering, back stabbing and mud-slinging over health care issues, the drugs and Oxygen shortages, keeps getting bigger and fiercer even as hundreds of breathless patients let go of the only life they have, thousands of dear ones run from pillar to post, carrying cylinders and dying loved ones in their arms, looking for hospital beds and crematorium slots, leaving little time to grieve over their irreparable loss. The people who promised them a good governance, an honest and transparent system of work and ‘good days’ ahead, have meanwhile disappeared into their castles, behind the safety of masks and official positions, trying to make the most of the situation as only they can and know how to! Raking up non-issues to downsize each other, issues that can wait for the pandemic to pass, issues that should not take precedence over saving our people and politics of revenge have become the diversion technique for saving one’s hide and face in face of rising anger from hapless sufferers, who needless to say, have found their outlet for their frustrations. The life-savior, also called the ‘doctor’. Thrash him. Thrash her.

The year began with great hope after waning of the first wave and the emergence of the savior, the vaccine, that would deliver us out of this devastation. The ‘Knight in shining armor’ declared its debut in a highly publicized event, protocols were set for countrywide vaccination of health care workers and the system was oiled and shined to bring life to the dying hope of millions of Indians. Then as days passed, precious unused vaccine vials found their way into dustbins, myths circulated faster than a sandstorm and the flow of the life serum started drying up even as crippled, hypertensive, diabetic, frail and terribly scared old and young people stood in the vaccination lines for hours under the blazing sun and had to be sent back disappointed and vulnerable to the exposure of the virus.

There was chaos. There was mayhem. There was ineptitude of the system. There was failure at very high levels. There was denial at the highest level. There was commotion and conundrum in hospitals and Covid centers. There were rallies and speeches, shamelessly bringing lakhs of people together for that piece of pie as politicians fell over each other salivating for the chair while the man on the streets continued to run with oxygen cylinders and dying loved ones in his arms. 

In all this came the jab of hope but only for a flash. The Knight in shining armor suddenly threw up his arms and fled to safer havens for reasons best known to him, leaving hundred billion pair of eyes deeply shocked at what fate had just denied them, the uncertainty of it all. The wave raged, the fungus found its way into hapless eyes and brains, the vaccine lines grew longer, the internet sites crashed and the livelihood of all came to a screeching halt.

The shrill voice continued to capture the thought process of one and all even as I tried to find sanity and peace at work. The thought of my vulnerability, exposure to the deadly virus and the strength of my life line just overtook all other happy thoughts. In spite of having been trained to defeat death in most circumstances, here was one invisible enemy that had pushed our doctor community on the other side of the table. The sordid things happening around me, the frustrations of a broken system, the helplessness of people and the arrogance of powers that are took the toll for most of the year gone by as I grappled to keep myself safe and afloat.

Just like everyone else.

Words left me, sentences deserted me and meaningful writing abandoned me.

Till I allowed myself to be enslaved by the external circumstances.

 They forgot one important thing. I am a survivor; I am a fighter and I am the man on the street! Just like the million others who have struggled to keep their sanity intact.

It’s taken some time, some meditating and some sage advice from the one who holds my hand tightly in this tsunami. I have cashed on to the words to get back the life that was once mine. I have allowed them to take their rightful place in my mind which I am now slowly and meticulously emptying of what just keeps hitting us every waking moment.

Keep writing, they tell me. We are here.

It’s all about purpose and meaning!

It’s all about finding happiness and loving the one life we have.

 

 Reina Khadilkar

BIRTHDAY THROUGH THE YEARS

 

BIRTHDAYS THROUGH THE YEARS

Your birthday is the most special day for you because it’s just your day which you ordinarily don’t share it with any member of your family or friends. The wishes are only for you and the love showered is specifically and specially for you and you alone! Its just simply your day in the whole of 365 days.

Over the years, birthdays have taken different meanings, different ways of celebration and different outlook to how the day should be.

In school, it was always a palpable happiness that began even as I opened my eyes. I would expectantly step into the hall or kitchen wanting someone to see me and break into a wish. Aai or Baba, whoever sees me first would shout across the room singing happy birthday and blessing me. Gifts of Camlin compasses, crayons, books, a new school bag or a pair of gold rings followed by a special drop to school by Mom when on other days it would be the tonga or the rickshaw. An extra hand bag for chocolates for the classmates and for teachers declared my special day at school. My best friend would insist on sitting next to me in the class and a flock of friends and not-much of friends would hover around me for the whole day. The evening was the gloriest of all- the hall decorated with crepe paper twisted to make wave like patterns that ran from one end of the hall to other, balloons stuck on walls, some floating aimlessly, specially stitched dresses, similar ones for me and my little sister, a cake with the brightest of colored cream rose flowers, pink and green and yellow, sandwiches loaded with chutney and butter, hot batata vada, wafers all served in paper plates and the candles that slowly out-grew the size of the cake.

In college, it was about the excitement of being wished in the corridors by friends shouting across as one surreptitiously wanted that person to hear it, and then if he would, he would awkwardly come and wish you from far without a hand shake, giving you goose bumps that made your day even more special. It was about independence, youthful energy, friends, heart aches and heart breaks, pen sets and hair clips as gifts,  dosa and coffee with the girl friends in the evening and returning home to a brightly colored cake, special dinner served in a silver plate , arati to ward off the evil and loads of blessings. No birthday ended without the mandatory new dress. The years were piling up, so was my independence. Yet the expectation of a gift and celebration continued.

Birthdays as a wife first and then as a mom started getting a little low key. The surprise and the gift here was the beautiful card which the kids made secretly in the night and gave it to me with a hug and kiss first thing in the morning. No other day ever felt so loved. But  then, rest of the day was about the kids, preparing for their day rather than mine, running around for household chores, pick and drop for classes and tuitions, work in between and to accept wishes on the land-line phone. The mandatory dress was there, but brought by me, the cake ordered by me, the dinner cooked by me. The childish expectations were long gone, yet I felt special and expectant of the love I got on this day.

Over the years, I have celebrated with family, friends, loved ones even as the number of people have steadily gone down. Parents and elders that blessed me have left one by one. Children grew up and flew away, siblings and cousins built their own worlds, distances set in. As forties turned to fifties and more, the expectations, the gifts, the parties, the shopping have all become a faint memory. The need to feel special has got eroded with time and birthday has become just that- day of birth.

It doesn’t feel that special anymore. It is now a reminder of the life I have left behind. It a reminder of the twists and turns I have taken on this roller-coaster journey. The joys, the pains, the sorrows, the mistakes, the achievements, the failures, all come back visiting this day and then its more about reminiscing rather than celebrating. Its more about being grateful for this day and this year rather than the materialistic pleasures that were once a hall-mark of a birthday.

The excitement of adding another year and feeling grown-up is now replaced by the hard fact that I am now a year closer to the finishing line wherever it is! It is now a humbling reminder of the time I have and the blessings I have collected in the form of my loved ones, friends and well-wishers.

Its now this gift that I treasure!