November 13, 2011
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think"
Horace Walpole
Despite the Valium, my subconscious fear of another tubular insertion wakes me up by 2:30am. I tell Achan that I would like to try for bowel movement. Slow pilgrimage like a naked sanyasi to the commode. Achan holds the urinal bottle for me. Much more urine passed with much less pain.
Relief.
But no sign of any motion at the other end.
Slight worry.
"It's ok" Achan says, "now that urination has become easy, try drinking some more water and we will try after couple of hours."
I like that plan.
Birds outside are never lazy. 4:45 am I am up again. Back on the throne. Trying to eliminate all hostile environment stimuli I ask Achan to wait outside after opening the water faucet. Not that I consider him 'hostile', I hate the idea of making him wait.
The sound of the steady stream of water drumming into the plastic bucket does the trick. Never had I imagined that the sensation of pooping would be such a delight. It must have been same for me when I was only a few months old. Why do I pretend that I have mentally grown?
In the very first note I wrote after landing in India, I had expressed surprise that Amma had kept a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom for me. I wasn't that Americanised, I had philosophized and belittled her gesture then. That same roll of toilet paper was indispensable 102 days later. Why do I pretend I know the value of things?
Aneesha sister and her assistant are relieved to see me happy and smiling when they arrive at 6:30 to deliver the first dose of antibiotics for the day. The left hand hurts really bad with the needle now. It takes us a few minutes of adjustments to
make the drip flow smoothly.
I realize that I get coughing sensation on lying down after sitting because my breathing becomes shallow during the time consuming lying down process. I congratulate myself on my logical deduction. Dr. Haridas had taught me the right way to get off and lie back down on the bed.
To get up to the right, turn and anchor your left hand onto the bed frame, then bring up the right elbow and at the same time drop the legs slowly off the bed towards the floor. This method puts minimal stress on the stomach region where I have 4 stab wounds with two of them right above and below my navel. With those stitch marks, though shaven hairless, my navel looks nothing like Ramya Krishnan's despite the similarity in fairness and fat.
I have a hearty breakfast and try walking around inside the room. The tightness of the bandage restricts me to a stooping posture. But life is clearly returning to the body.
While Achan goes for his morning ablutions (Yes, I remember the GRE wordlist), I lie down and look out of the window through the vertical plastic blinds. A tiny black spider makes its way upside down on the last but one horizontal metal railing of the window.
A life form.
Suddenly it dawns on me that for the past 36 hours, my entire universe had been only me.
My pain, my worry!
Not another soul mattered.
Not another life, human or animal, crossed my awareness.
I was just throbbing fleshy piece of absolutely singular selfishness.
The image of the woman to whom I profess my affection routinely never flashed in my mind! Or of the others before her!
Forgotten too were friends and near and dear ones!
Far removed from my awareness were the teachers and mentors: human, animal and plant, who had taught me all along!
The inevitable defeat of the ideal by the real.
It was stark.
With what face shall I ever talk again of compassion and sympathy?
I had always been proud of being the ever-available friend and helper in crisis. This experience had taken me far beyond that superficial self-image. At the core, for me, only I matter.Everything I had believed about my own personal narrative, the beautifully crafted illusory self aggrandizing saga had collapsed.
In my well-fed, healthy, cushy life, frequently I have scorned the stupid behavior of the poor and the less unfortunate. Where is their intelligence?! Why do they fall for scams and fake promises again and again? Why are they so superstitious? Why don't they let go of their unscientific practices? I had vociferously often wondered.
Now in the few hours of tremendous pain and fear, me, the highly educated, proudly intelligent, arrogantly prudent Arun Surendran, had but one concern: alleviation of my immediate agony and worry.
Why would anyone less fortunate be any different?
Why wouldn't they run to the nearest promise of solace even if it ultimately means the fate winged ants flocking to a light bulb?
I sit on the bed with head hanging down in the enormity of this shame.
From the ruins, deep within me, rises then, a spring of gratitude.
For the millions who had suffered before me. For the thousands who had done the good work to ameliorate such suffering.
The naturalists, the inventors, the physicians, the bold adventurers, the experimenters, the self-less healers, the passionate nurses, the caregivers, the tinkerers, the thinkers...May be they all had their own selfish motivations, may be none were like me.
The real human progress has not been about the addition of comforts but about the elimination of discomforts.
To the pioneers in that perpetual, human endeavor, I bowed....earnestly and perhaps for the first time in life, truthfully!
And then out of the blue, I remembered the story of the Buddhist monk Asanga. Achan had come out of the bathroom. He sat on the bystander bed watching me.
"kazhinja mupatharu manikoor njan vere areyum patti vicharichila Acha. Njan enne patti mathram. " (I didn't think about anyone else in the last 36 hours, Acha. I thought only about myself.)
"Manushyante Swarthatha" (Human Selfishness) he said.
"Athey, ente swarthathayude valippam njan ithrayum vicharichila. Ippo manasilayi. Ini orikallum 'loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu' ennokke thatwam njan parayila. athinonnum enikkoru ardhavum illacha" (Yes, I didn't expect my selfishness to be so huge. Now I understand. I will never say theories and meaningless phrases like "let there be happiness for the whole world". I do not mean those things deep inside.)
"Buddhisathil oru kathayund..."(There is a story in Buddhism) I continued. My voice was already cracking.
"Asangante. Oru paadu kalam buddhan aavan nadannu. tapasu cheythu. kashtam pidicha kore sadhakangal okke cheythu. varshangalolam." (Asanga's. He tried for a long time to become a buddha, to become enlightened. He did plenty of penance. Performed ardous rituals. For several years) The lump in my throat kept growing. I had to frequently pause in between as I continued.
"Avasanam oru divasam, ithokke mathiyakkam ennu vicharichappo vazhiyil oru pattiye kandu." (One day he decided that he wasn't going to be successful, he decided to quit. Then he saw a dog on the street)
"oru puzhutha patti. athinte vrinangalil puzhukal pedakunnu. karayanum ananganum vayathe athu pakuthi chathu vazhiyil kidakunnu" (A roting dog. Heavily wounded. In the wound, maggots were lavishly squirming. Unable to cry, unable to move, that dog was lying on the road half dead)
I was fighting back my tears at this point, but continued. Achan patiently waited for me to find the words and the voice.
"kayy kondu athine thottal athinu iniyum novum. aa thurana murivu karanam pulayum."
(If Asanga touched it with his hands, he knew it will hurt for the dog even more. It will flinch from a human touch on the open wound)
"athukondu asangan athinte aduthu irunnu...naakku kondu...athinte murvil naakku neetti...nakki ashwasam kodu...." (So Asanga sat next to the dog...put his tongue out...and started licking the wound to bring it relief)
Unable to finish the sentence, I completely broke down and wept. Achan came over and hugged me. I cried for a few minutes.
The story of Asanga may be a parable. It may be an idealization. But there are real men and women who have walked down that path. Every caring parent of any species exhibits a shade of this compassion towards at least its own child at some point or the other. And that alone is the unconditional love that keeps this world going.
Later in the evening when my youngest uncle visited, I shared with him the realization of my utter selfishness. "You are 100% correct, Unni," he said, "When we are not in full health, it is impossible for us to sympathize truly with others."
He recalled how he had contemplated suicide some time back because of the excruciating pain he suffered from a congenital piles and fistula problem. Every morning, for 3 hours,he would have to endure numbing, intense pain that would slither up his body from the bottom. And then he had to go through the afternoons in full awareness that the pain will return the next day. Yet, in those days, in the mornings, he always drove his daughter to all her coaching classes.
There it is!
In that act, in that care for his daughter's future, is the bit of Asanga in him.
I recognize the bits of Asanga, large and small, in the numerous doctors, nurses and attendants who took care of me in the hospital.
There is Asanga in sister Shyja who spend 15 minutes to give me 100ml of antibiotics on that afternoon, 5 ml at a time, constantly gently stroking my wrist because the needle was acting up.
I can see Asanga in sister Aneesha who would repeatedly ask if I was hurting even a little when she inserted the butterfly needles after the injector needle had completely blocked up and was removed.
Asanga shines through Dr. Haridas who stopped by the room every single night before he left for home, after 10-12 hours of non-stop surgeries, and still had the kindness to tell me that I will look more handsome if I shed 8 more kilos.
I see Asanga in friends and relatives, who visited me, in real and online, and wished me speedy recovery.
Asanga smiles in my life through that wonderful woman who had to be taken to the hospital the same day, 10000 miles away, with a case of nothing else but sympathetic sickness.
I went into the hospital room a man proud of his achievements, honors, relations, knowledge and words.
I was reduced to a totally dependent, weeping baby whose entire world shrunk to the aches and effusions of his own body and whose entire mind was a black chasm of worry and self-pity.
I have returned with eyes that can see a world populated with Asangas.
When the scales of selfish delusion cover them again, for they inevitably will with time, I will sit down and read these notes again to realize what I really am deep inside and what my eyes must seek.
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust
No comments:
Post a Comment