Monday Musings 259: The smell of despair and the fragrance of hope

Monday Musings 259: The smell of despair and the fragrance of hope

How can a place smell of despair and hope at the same time?

A day at a Jesuit hospital owing to the vicissitudes of events was a chilling reminder and a sombre reassurance.  It was an old world hospital – not the modern day corporate version of it, but the one of yesteryears where service was not a mission statement framed and hung from a wall but a way of life really – a behaviour that became its own evidence.

Morbidity is humbling.  The eventuality of it can be numbing.  It is a road that has no U turn; a river whose tide only flows only in one direction.  Everyday living is a denial of it this eventuality. May be our search for some significance in populating our time with so much is actually a sophisticated charade that makes us forget that we are actually hurtling towards our end. Many years ago I remember Khuswant Singh, the eminently controversial Sardar writing that he used to visit the ghats of Yamuna where the pyres burns round the clock to ‘put things in perspective.’ I know now what he meant.  For a few days I will remember this perspective and then most likely I will get busy and rediscover my denial. That is my only armour.

Amidst the smell of despair work people who are embodiment of hope. Everyone who comes here is in search of assurance. They want to hear that they have somehow slowed down their end on its tracks. They have anguish in their eyes – meekness, vulnerability, a scare that is screaming through their gaze. They want to hear what truthfully cannot be said – and that even they know it, makes it even more poignant. I see this game in every interaction – the old and the dying know that the die has been cast for them; the young and hopeful pretend that this is not for them. Ah! The delirium of denial – let the game carry on – that is the only thing people are left with to hold on to!

I cannot fathom the minds of those who work here – the 20 something nurses and ward boys; the young emergency ward Junior doctors – the underbelly of an institution such as this. Who would chose such a close association with misery, pain, grief, agony and despair for a daily living? What would their minds be at the end of a day’s work? How would they be when they return back to the warmth of families – would they be even capable of indulging in the utterly meaningless banter of real life? How do they even get back to the senseless crave of materiality and the unimaginable squabble of relationships and wilfully indulge in it – and if they do find all that hollow how do they even carry on with this pretence. My heart goes out for them – I guess even they resort to denial – I would not blame them if they did. They deserve it far more than I do.

Tomorrow is another day – another day for perpetuating the denial – that I have a long and healthy life ahead for sure.

Guru