Angels in Cancer Ward

A friend of mine shared The Starfish Story the other day on WhatsApp. The young girl in the story is seen picking up starfish left on the beach by the tide one by one and throwing them back to the sea. An old man approaches her and says, “There are thousands on the beach….you cannot possibly make a difference”. The girl walks to pick yet another star fish and throws it back to the sea and then says: “It makes a difference for that one”.

Even as I read the story, memories of an incident in RR Army Hospital, Delhi came rushing to my mind.

A friend of mine was admitted there to undergo spinal surgery. It was a sunny Sunday and I was staying just across the road. My wife made something for the friend for lunch and so I just walked across to call on him. He was in good cheer and we chatted for some time before I took leave to go home. Instead of taking the lift, I decided to walk down all the three floors.

As I turned into the corridor of the floor below, I noticed three ladies standing by the side wall. Well dressed and holding themselves so graciously, I couldn’t help lingering my look a little while. Just then, one of them turned and happened to catch me looking at them. And, she smiled as graciously.

I bowed my head and said, “Good Morning”.

“Good morning, how do you do?” she said.

“I am fine, ma’am. I am Wing Commander Srinivasan. What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” I said.

“Oh, I am Mrs….. My husband is a Colonel. Well, yeah, actually things are not pretty okay for someone. So, we were just wondering what next?”

The chivalrous soldier in me rose to the occasion. Stepping forward, I said, “Can I do something, ma’am?

 She looked at me for a few seconds and then said, “Perhaps not. But you can come in and have a look”.

She led me then into the Ward with the sign board – Terminal Patients.

The ward was full of young and old, with everyone apparently having the messenger from the Maker standing at hand. Notwithstanding the life support or other medical equipment that surrounded their beds, each one propped, waved, raised a hand and smiled looking at the three ladies. Many of them called out “mai” (mother) in voices that were laced with love. Their eyes glistened and wherever the ladies stood, hands reached out and held to them.

The ladies in turn sat by the bedside, holding hands, placing their palms on cheeks and simply ruffling the few curls still left on those pates. Their eyes were also moist but they poured out a compassion that ran like a river, immersing everyone in the ward.

Even I stood there watching, my eyes welled. It felt though my chest was caught in pincer, squeezing a strange emotion that I knew not the name. I cried.

The Colonel’s wife came over to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. Led by her, I went over to a bed where a patient was cocooned in a plethora of medical equipment. Ironically, it looked as though the plethora of tubes running around and through him were actually sucking the juice of life out of him. The scrawny, skeletal body screamed a song of pain, though his lips hardly moved. There was not enough fluid in him even to moist his eyes with misery. I was immobile, both in body and mind, even to think what he must be going through.

She looked me into the eye and guided my sight to a board that hung by the bed. The patient was on Chemo for over six months. And, now the light of life was exiting him, anytime. He was just 23.

I stood frozen in a cocktail of emotions.

All our life, we spend every neuron of our energies into controlling things around us. We seek constantly to embolden and fortify our lives with money, material comforts, power, position and accolades. We crave to bring newer vistas under our power, seeking them not only in planet Earth, but also in the Moon, Mars, and the universe beyond.

We have everything and have the power to possess anything that we set about to want. Yet, thins fleeting thing called life refuses to bow down in front of our colossal might. It enters and leaves our beautiful bodies at will, sometimes devastating this cage of bones and muscles in ways that no human eye ever wants to see. At least, never want to imagine affliction with one’s own body.

What use is that power which conquers the mighty oceans and mountains and vales, yet remains so vulnerable to a thing that eyes cannot see? What use is that power which conquers worlds beyond, yet is bereft of the power to understand the world within?

The Colonel’s wife gently touched my shoulder again. I turned and walked slowly towards the entrance door. As I stood there, she patted me gently, not needing words to communicate. Both of us remained quiet for some time.

As I turned to look at her, she said quietly, “Please pray. He will be gone any time now”.

I bowed my head and nodded as I left.

I pray every day, even though I know he is gone long back.

There are thousands of starfish on the beach. You may not rescue any of them. But when you pray, you do not know to which when you are making the difference.

PS: I have come to believe that there are angels on Earth, especially in Cancer Wards.

Sincerely yours...

A bustling city like Bengaluru is perhaps the place you look at high rise malls, endless traffic, and people scurrying to work or home like ants and presume that here people have time for not even themselves. In any case, you do not expect anyone to have time for any lesser creature than humans. At least that is what I thought till the time I came out of an ATM on the perennially busy MG road. There was a stair case leading down from the metro station above right in front. An adult rhesus monkey was coming down the flight of stairs, oblivious to the thick traffic blaring away their horns and hooters. It appeared as though he owned that place and it is at his will that maddening world went around him. Curious to see what he is going to do next, I stood there watching. He reached the last but one step and squatted himself comfortably, neither looking at the traffic nor at people hurrying around. His gaze was fixed at something ahead. I followed his gaze and found one elderly women on the footpath selling variety of things, including nick-knacks. Then I saw this man approaching her wearing a well-worn working dress with grime and grease all over. He gave some coins to the women in exchange of what looked like a small packet of biscuits. He patients opened the packet, pulled out one and patiently walked over to where the monkey was seated. He stretched the biscuit towards the monkey, who in turn stretched out one hand and took it from him. Then the monkey went about munching the biscuit as though he had all the time in the world. The man waited attentively and proceeded to feed that fellow with two more. The final stock of two biscuits were then handed over to the monkey in one go. Clutching both in its lips, the monkey turned around, climbed the flight of stairs and perched himself comfortably on the railing of the landing. There he went about finishing those two biscuits with same unhurried indulgence. By now the monkey curiosity in me was at its peak and I slowly walked upto where the man was standing next to the women seller. In colloquial Tamil, the woman said to him, “Poor thing. We can only give him some biscuits. Don’t know what he will do for water?” The man nodded sadly, tut-tutting her as though he regretted not having arranged for a bowl of water to go with biscuits.

In the din of my thoughts that followed, I didn’t register the maddening honks of traffic. Here I was thinking of the grand mansion that I will make for my family to live forever, of the great properties and monies that I will bequeath to my progeny and the grand pomp and grandeur with which I will glorify myself as I walk towards my sunset years…and, this man who perhaps is not earning enough to eat three square meals a day tut-tutting his regret for not having brought a bowl of water for a stray monkey. There is a lot of commotion inside me right now. When it settles down, perhaps I shall share some more thoughts. Till then….        

Bat Kid, the Super Hero!

Five year old Miles Scott becomes the Bat kid on November 17^th, 2013. At 10:15 AM, he rescues a damsel in distress; at 11:15 AM he prevents a bank robbery and at 1: 15 PM rescues Lou Seal – saving Gotham City from certain doom at the hands of Riddler, the villain. The city folk of Gotham City hail the draped crusader as their savior and turn up in huge numbers on the street to cheer him and hail him hero. A grateful Mayor of Gotham City felicitates the Bat Kid in the City Hall at 2 PM.

This is no script for a Batman series on TV.

San Francisco turns itself into Gotham City; Lamborghini donates a bat mobile; an actor plays Batman to give company; City Police Chief himself plays the role of Gotham City Police Commissioner; City Mayor plays the role of the distraught Gotham City Mayor; volunteer women play the role of the damsel in distress and Lou; an actor plays the role of the green clad villain Riddler; the City police turn up at places of crime and wriggle their helpless hands, outsmarted by ‘Riddler’; the city traffic aligns itself to give precedence to the Bat Mobile, watching in awe their capped crusader go from crime scene to crime scene defeating the villain; the city news papers come out with a special edition of Gotham City Chronicle screaming the head line ‘Bat Kid Saves City’ and the media in San Francisco runs live coverage of his ‘exploits’ on virtually every channel.

That is not all.

Actor Ben Affleck tweeted live - ‘Batkid. Best Batman ever’.

President Barack Obama puts out a video on Vine – ‘Way to go, Miles. Way to save Gotham’.

The five year old Miles Scott has leukemia and has been under treatment for two years. He is a Batman fan. The Make A Foundation of USA decided to help the kid live his dream for a day – to be Batman!! What started as a small initiative to get him batman drapes and perhaps a ride in a car around the city turned into a day when Miles Scott lived ‘Batman’ with San Francisco going out of its way to be part of his dream.

Honestly, my son, wife and I cried as we watched the event on YouTube. The human touch was so overwhelming that we wished and prayed Miles Scott the best of everything that he (and his parents) could ever hope for. Our prayers will remain with him.

The Make A Wish Foundation of USA deserves a standing ovation – our wishes and blessings to its volunteers in whatever they do. There are millions of children in this world who need care, dignity and love. May your service reach as many as the will God would grant!

Thank you, the Hindu, for the lovely coverage on Metro Plus, 21 Nov, in your Chennai edition.

I must say it this way: Compassion must become a passion.

I salute the Mayor, Chief of Police and the Citizens of San Francisco. You are simply wonderful. You have demonstrated that in a world that is ridden with strife and suffering, you stand tall with a heart filled with compassion. Behind the shine and blind of worldly affairs, you are darlings with a heart of gold. Good Show, Frisco. Live the way you are!  

PS: In case you have missed, here is the YouTube link to watch the Bat kid in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrkoNjbSRBg

St Francis of Assisi

Long ago when in college, I happened attend the college chapel on a Sunday. We had an elderly priest, who chose that day to speak about prayer.  What he said got embedded into our hearts for a very long time to come:

Actually it does not matter to which faith that we belong. What is important is to have faith. What is important is to believe that we can be instruments of God to spread the message of love, joy, peace and forgiveness.

After the service, the elderly priest went about distributing one of the most touching prayers that I have come across, to everyone in the congregation – Prayer of St Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love.  

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Many, many years later, another apostle of love who walked the Earth during our lifetime, Mother Theresa, delivered the same prayer with a little variation while addressing the UN in 1985: 

Make us worthy Lord to serve our fellow men throughout the world,

Who live and die in poverty and hunger.

Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread

And by our understanding love give peace and joy.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace.

That where there is hatred I may bring love,

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,

That where there is discord, I may bring harmony,

That where there is error I may bring truth,

That where there is doubt I may bring faith,

That where there is despair I may bring hope,

That where there are shadows I may bring light,

That where there is sadness I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,

To understand than to be understood,

To love than to be loved.

For it is by forgetting self that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven,

it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

Great souls, I suppose, think alike!

You will never be alone if you love!

There is a time for everything – to love, to give, to care, etc and a time to feel lonely, sick, desolate, etc also. If we carefully evaluate our day, we will know this is true. Then what make a happy man and a sad one?

Can you feel happy that you felt alone and sad as much as you felt wanted and loved? Someone told me that you have to be a philosopher to feel so. I do not know anything about philosophy. Therefore, I can not evaluate. However, there is something I can share in the form of a story:

A great king once felt extraordinarily lonely and desolate. He had a dozen doting queens, two dozen loving children, adoring citizens and a bunch of loyal ministers. Yet one day, he felt lonely and desolate.

As is customary, he called for the wisest among his ministers and confided in him how he felt. The minister thought long and hard about this and said:

O king, you are lonely because there is something that you are yet to achieve but can not figure out what. Otherwise, look at you. No man can ever boast of what you have.

The king was silent for sometime. Then he asked the minister to arrange the trial of one of the most notorious criminals in custody. The case was quite a complicated one and the cruelty supposedly exhibited by the criminal had shocked everyone’s conscience.

The minister thought the King wanted to meet out some extra-ordinary punishment and thereby jolt his lonely heart out of desolation.

So the trial commenced. As it concluded and time came for the King’s judgment, a strange silence fell on the crowd. The criminal in any case knew that he would be a dead man and so stood quietly awaiting the sentence. The king was in deep contemplation. At the end, the king said:

Bring forth the victim’s family. So they came forward.

Swear to me that by this man’s blood your child will come back to life.

The family stood puzzled and told him that it can never be. Their child was dead.

Then, swear to me that your child’s soul will rejoice when this man’s blood is spilt.

The family was not sure. No one had seen a dead soul rejoicing.

If this man’s blood is of no use to you then, why do you want him dead?

The family did not know what to say.

The king then asked the criminal:

If by your death you can not bring the child back, how then do you want to pay them back?

The criminal looked at the mother of the child and said:

I do not know. I have sinned and would like to pay them back by my labor, my king. I can not bring their child back. But I can work their field and season after season; can give them a good harvest.

So be it, then. Free this man so that he is a slave to the family to work on their land. As for the grieving mother, learn to forgive the sin this man committed. May be you will find the smile of your child in every harvest this man brings to your home!

After the trial, the minister was puzzled and asked his king how the trial helped him overcome his loneliness. The king said:

Compassion, my dear minister, is the antidote for loneliness!