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.

Being Quiet

Is being quiet a sign of self-control? Does it signify that we are the masters of our environment and that we are unfazed in adversity for we know what to do?

These are interesting questions, but not certainly the first time someone has asked them. Psychologists would give voluminous explanations and psychiatrists perhaps would schedule sessions to help us discover the answer. I think even religionists would like to be in the pantheon of experts. They may tell us that a mind that dwells in God fears nothing, for it is His will that guides us and destiny therefore is not to be scared of, but prayed for. I am neither a psyche nor a shrink or for that matter consider myself religious enough. Though being neither does not seem to inhibit me from having an opinion.

Life is a lesson that we continue to learn, whether we are conscious about doing so or pretty well unconscious. From childhood we gather impressions, by impulses and by indoctrination. Five physical senses give the impulse and we act or react; environment comprising of parents, neighborhood, school, friends and the society at large indoctrinates us with a sense of right-wrong, do-don’t, and know-ignores. Some people learn about most of everything. Some master some, and average at others. Some ignore most and best at few. Some others die without making much effort at anything. That is the permutations and combinations, but the opportunities to learn neither multiply nor diminish. They remain constant, while we individually make it in some combination. Depending on which strata we achieve we manage to handle things well pertaining to the strata that we have made it to. When we faced with a situation that we have managed not yet to deal with, we have a choice: we can set about learning to handle or we can be ‘quiet’. Quiet in this sense does not mean being comfortable with the situation. It simply means that we do not see the opportunity to unravel something more about life and therefore choose to remain quiet.

People who manage to learn about most are also quiet sometimes. They are quiet not out of the inability to sense an opportunity. But the ability to sense that something they not yet know is in front and they need to collect the wisdom of their cumulative learning and energies to go about discovering their new lessons. They are about to become Columbus of the unknown – the dimensions in their own self that they have not as yet discovered.

Being quiet of the second kind is the choice of those who seek life. For in the words of Khalil Gibran:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.

To Forgive is Divine!

To forgive one needs courage. Merely ignore or turn our face from those who have offended us is not courage. It is behaning like an ostrich or the proverbial cat which closes its eyes and thinks that the world is dark! There is a very apt Kural (by the great Tamil scholar-philosopher-Valluvar) which says "Inna saidarai oruththal, avar nana nannayam saiduvidal" meaning the best way to show our response to those who did us wrong is to do something good to them! But to do so, you must have courage.

A step further, to forgive those who did not offend you personally yet 'sinned', you need to shed your ego and become thereby divine. Lord Jesus forgave those who crucified him and also those two thieves who were crucified with him. That single act shows that in his physical form as Jesus of Nazereth he showed the courage. In his true form as God's Son, he forgave everyone who sinned!

Forgiving is not about merely 'not taking offence'. It is in forgiving that we tend to invoke the divinity in the other person also and help him to elevate his soul. It is for this effort to elevate a fellow being from the clutches of ordinary emotions and make him see the higher plane of consciousness that we say 'to forgive is divine'.