the fall of a sparrow

hi folks- if i seem 2 b a voice from some anteduvelian past, well as u can see from my re photo, i feel positively so. arun and vimal have been after my life 2 publish something and not in alpamorse ( new word meaning alpanas morse code) so now i am unleashing all my angst onto u. have a bawl!

We like to think we choose our professions. At least I think I did, when i chose to become a doctor, warring with my parents over my choice, thinking with naïve innocence that i could change lives and even, perhaps, the world. But does your profession, in fact, single you out, demanding as a greedy mistress, promising joy and delivering a mixed bag of emotions, heavy with responsibility and sometimes, deep sorrow? At least, it is so with medicine,where mere slips of girls and gawky boys are mutated into unwilling atlases, bearing the weight of alien and impossible dreams on their tired shoulders. The training should warn you about the rigours ahead- an unrelenting carousal of bone tiring work, harried meals eaten on the run and nights spent poring over tomes trying to make sense of sinew and cartilage, neuron and sinuous pathways, herb and esoteric chemical. Yet the student days are a cakewalk compared to what lies ahead- the day when you graduate, all full of bookish knowledge but quailing in your heart when actually faced with a real patient who is looking up at you with trust in his eyes. Foolish man, does he really believe that I can heal him? I am trying desperately to make sense of his jumbled history and trying to arrive at a sensible diagnosis- though all that comes to mind is a dread of actually missing the boat entirely. Yet the days go by, you surprise yourself sometimes with the accuracy of your insight, sometimes berate yourself with the idiocy with which you have missed an obvious symptom. Playing god is not at all easy and extremely fraught with such heartache.

In your youth, passion carries the day and arrogance also,because, remember? we were going to change the world and it definitely was our oyster? This passion helps you tide over emergencies, when you make decisions as if on auto-pilot, staking peace of soul and going out on a limb on cases that may seem hopeless. Yet one case may also mark you for life and then deep in the unfathomable recesses of thought,which you had never plumbed before, in the fathomless void of the night, you wake up and agonise over it time and again.Human mortality is a foregone conclusion and while questioning life's end and its futility, you also acknowledge its beautiful inevitability.You also realize that you are also so very human and though wearing the mask of infallibility, must bow to the inevitable that is life and consequently death. Then comes the time of calm acceptance, when passion is tempered with compassion, a compassion that is also for yourself, which acknowledges the burden of responsibility that you bear and tempers the anguish that your mistakes invoke.

Yet this equanimity may well be rocked suddenly again to its core and then deep distress wells out of your depth and you feel truly heart-sick, as if bearing a real weight against your chest. This is not your everyday despair, a slow sadness that seeps into you gradually as you try to reconcile facts with expectations. Rather it is a sinking feeling compounded of anger and angst at what is, a refusal to admit the facts, a hot ball of steel wool in the pit of your stomach,abrasive and searing. A clenching of your innards, an actual gut wrenching spasm that makes you feel continuously sick. It is anger at what could have been, a desperate wish for the clock to roll back and for you to see this future and prevent it. An involuntary spasm of your fists and a catch at your heart when you realise that this is not some nightmare which you are going to wake up from. Something that I am going through as I see a friend struggle valiantly with cancer. A friend who is timid, a withdrawing soul, a sparrow -quiet and strong, yet perhaps fading away in a haze of pain.

Never one to complain, she took whatever life doled out bravely on the chin with a dogged determination which made me think that she would overcome any obstacle.We met through my professional work, she became a good friend, but in her quiet way, she kept to the periphery, never trying to intrude on what she thought was my precious time and my work, never complaining . However over a span of a three years she underwent a series of orthopaedic procedures. I visited sporadically, enquiring about her health but never digging any deeper as I thought she was in good hands and that field not my own speciality. Yet she was misdiagnosed and neglected and now faces the prospect of chemotherapy after a painful amputation. I am desperately trying to make sense of this, summoning false cheer and a brave face while I alternately quail and rage, my anger directed sometimes against the doctors, sometimes against the god I do not believe in and sometimes against myself. Myself, because friendship presupposes that you are in sync with your friends, that you go that extra mile and ask about them even when they do not ask you to; myself, because I should have gone and seen her more often, pried out her pain out of her reserve and hauled her off for a second opinion. Myself, because while I was busy with my small life, going through routine and complaining about my silly aches and imaginary pains, she was facing a demon and trying to stare it down; myself because I should have lent her some of my willfulness and anger, an anger that makes me proactive-bristling at the slightest brush to my ego or physical form.Anger that makes me question parents, god and all notions of societal rules, that does not believe in a diagnosis that goes against what my body is telling me. Question myself now because I was stupid enough to think that she was getting good care and did not think to look beyond the obvious Women are often labelled psychosomatic, and i, despite being a doctor myself, have been misdiagnosed on several occasions and invariably by stupid male medicos who think all womanly aches and pains are in their f--*g small minds. We often need to have the courage to go beyond this and seek out second opinions..

I think nowadays our friendships are shallow, our modern day pace makes us insular. We would rather skim superficialities in our friendship, not daring to trust others with our problems and not really , deeply concerned about their's as we go about our daily lives with its small concerns. But i think truly being friends means that we lay open our wounds, though sometimes that may provoke only ridicule and trust someone to look into our selves and accept the help that they give. A sibling, specially a sister, is a great friend, having seen you up close and with all your warts (and later as we become fat, fertile and forty,maybe farts!) and can be a pillar of support.But are we not all sisters under our skins and can we not really show our deeper selves to friends who care? Can we not walk that extra mile and make time for these sisters of our soul? i think its time we learnt to take just as we give,let others' kindness into our lives, accept, nay seek out help when we need it. And also actively go out of our way in trying to understand what our friends are undergoing, trying to be a little less self-absorbed and self-centered. That may well be a small step in us becoming people who are truly friends, not just people traversing a common road and being together as a means of convenience.