Every New Year brings me a strong message that there is no end… what we see as an end is actually a beginning of something new…..
2009 has not been a good year but I have taken some big steps and feel happy saying bye to it.. like parting with a friend after having a nice time with them...
I am not making resolutions for the coming year but taking one day at a time and making the most of it…
I am planning for entering my new journey with much less baggage of Grudges, Pain, Hatred, Jealousy etc. Every passing year I have been able to shed bit of negativity and may be this year I have not much to throw away ;).
Also I plan to carry a lot of gift wrapped Love, Sincerity, Trust, Support, Faith, Care and Blessings to give away freely to anyone who deserves it.
Praying for peace in the troubled world for the coming year…Let the attitude be Live and let Live.
I am talking about 2006.. I was planning to begin the New Yearwith hope and smile because we finally saw success at the end of the year.. My Mom had BC and she agreed to undergo surgery but no radiation and chemo. Radiation a bit OK but a BIG NO chemotherapy. She had two recurrences in 18 months and that is when we finally convinced her that she should go for chemo. She loved my kids (Rayyan was her favorite of the two) and finally when we told her how they would have to cope with her leaving them.. and how she has to wait for her son to come down after going to Dubai etc she decided to go for it on her own terms in a hospital she would choose. So I was expecting a successful year 2006 but what a beginning I had. On the very first day of 2006 even before the sun had risen the news of my mom’s death really shattered me. I did not cry much but could feel the pain and I knew I had to be strong for everyone around me. The worst thing is I can never afford the luxury of crying over some strong shoulder and get comforted. On June 7th 1996 my elder sister lost her battle to breast cancer. She was very hesitant to go for the treatment and refused everything from surgery to chemo. She had some kind of phobia for needles and surgeries. A shot for flu meant worse than being shot at by a gun for her. She believed in faith healing which had no scissors or needles and stuck to it and lost her life. Now on the 1st of January my mother lost her battle to breast cancer again. She couldn’t tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy. She was talking over the phone to me just few hours before she passed away. She told me forgive my brother and sister if they do some wrong and be there for them always like she was .. That was tough. My mother was too forgiving for them and I am not that kind of forgiving person. I believe in justice but I assured her I will try. My brother was treated like a small baby and never allowed to be responsible ever. I was a stern elder sister setting rules for study time etc earning her wrath. He was not sent to Dubai even when he had good job offers because my Mom always wanted him to be near her. She was afraid she would die when he left her and she would never die in peace. But fate played a game with her. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, my brother who had not been able to earn much over here had to go abroad and struggle a bit there before settling down to a good job with myhusbands help. I love my little brother a lot but being there for him like my mother would be was tough. I have always disliked my younger sisters obsession with self though as a sister I love her too.. For her the theory of the universe revolves around me holds true. It was tough being for them what my Mom was. I disagree with my younger sister most of the time. My sense of being just always irritates her because she believes in being in supportive for the people we care. There were few guidelines given to my SIL as to how she is to take care of her husband and few for me. My Mom told me that something deep inside her tells her that she may not survive and I may never be able to meet her again. I brushed her aside saying that has been her emotional black mail for me for 30 yrs. And we laughed over that because my mother had made me do a lot of things telling me this is going to be her last wish with some emotional blackmailing tale to accompany it when one fine day I blurted out that she was a crow and since then I had used that term to brush her aside whenever she tried her dying emotional blackmails on me.. (India has a myth that crows are ever living birds and death never naturally comes to them). Wait and see your crow theory will not hold this time she said to me..but I did not believe her. It was only few hours after our conversation with her over the phone before my younger sister called up in panic and said that Mommy wasn’t breathing properly and struggling. My sister cannot handle pressure of any kind and she will be lost as to what to do in situation like this. I told her to stay calm and find a doctor to look at mom because she was in hospital. There was no need to panic because help was at hand. She started crying and told me that most of the people were at celebrations of new year and no one was around.. it was just past the new year party and may be she was right. I could not trust her because in a panic state she would miss anyone standing right in front of her..I told her to first talk calmly to Mom and make her relax and go find someone because some has to be there in a onco hospital. Me and my sister in law held our breaths and waited for her to call again . Minutes later she called up saying the doctor declared our mother dead. I thought she must still be in a panic state and must be imagining things. So I had to talk to someone else I don’t know who and it was confirmed.My mom had really left all of us behind and gone away to the land of no return. I had decided to begin the new year with lots of hopes that my mother would win the battle for life at least for a few years with breast cancer and my resolution had been to smile all through the year no matter what happened. May be I was wrong. It is not easy to smile when we lose someone forever—that too a person who has given us life, love and lots of care. She was not highly educated but very street smart person. She had the power to make people do what she wanted them to and wonder of wonder she never used threats or treats.
She loved pampering all of us in one way or other. Now we all had to make our own decisions and we would never have anyone to blame our faults on. It was very tough for me for a moment to let her go and accept the fact that Mommy is dead. Later I realized that it was easier than letting go of my sister. Back then I just couldn’t let go. I held on to things which belonged to my sister for years and would feel upset when I saw someone using it. Somewhere deep inside me I felt she would come back and need them. Even now after almost a decade I can’t make myself believe that my sister is never going to come back ever again. My sister said that she surely would be killed by the harsh drugs they would administer to control cancer and I thought she was wrong. She lost her battle gracefully in a way she wanted. May be my thoughts of treatment would have saved were wrong.. After mommy lost her battle I don’t know. I feel so confused.
My son was devastated seeing his grandma being buried and when he came back from the graveyard he asked me why it had to be so… he was so emotionally troubled that he had gone there bare footed and did not even know that. I had to think of something to ease his mind.
We sat down and I tried to explain few things to him… we all have to die someday. Isn’t it better that he is suffering the pain of losing his grandma rather then the other way because one of us has to face death of a loved one. All the people will not die simultaneously. When my time comes I would love to leave him behind to grieve for me rather than have it other way.. he calmed down a bit and since then has learnt to let go of things gracefully. Sigh !!!Anyway we have to accept the facts and death is the harshest of them all. We all are going to face it one day or other. All we can do now is pray that her soul rest in peace and add prayers for all the people who are not being able to enjoy the season due to their losses.
Below is the picture of my Mom again taken by her friend of more than 35 yrs... who lives in NY. This is what my Mommy really was.. a down to earth person who loved cooking and feeding everyone around her. She was the most excellent cook you could meet.
“Do you always thank God for the good things that happen to you?”
“Not always but sometimes I do thank God. I am not sure it just slips out like an expression all the time. There are times when I really feel grateful to God and say thank you to him. My experience of God is totally different and it is unique to me. I do not much believe in what other people have to say about God. My faith is built by what I feel. Like one of the incidents that happened which made my faith go through a roller coaster ride.
“Few yrs ago I had an encounter with God. He hit me hard on my head. The problem was I couldn’t say this to anyone because I was being naughty when this happened and there would be punishment waiting for me.
It all started because of the fight me and my sister always have going on between us. My sister loves to run the table fan in full speed and I do not like it that way. I was more sensitive to cold weather and therefore I would always feel cold and start shivering in the night and it was so difficult to sleep. But she always insisted to keep the fan running even in winter and we would fight about it. One day the fight continued for a long time and she hit me. She was much stronger than me and most of the kids around and hitting her back would just earn me few more hard blows. I was very angry with her and decided to teach her a lesson. So I got the blade I kept for sharpening the pencil and began cutting the wire of the fan. I had made sure everybody was engaged in something or other and there was no one in the room. I had taken all precautions yet after sometime someone hit me so hard on the head that I fell down. I looked around but found no one there either in the room or out of it. I then suddenly remembered what Sister Laurence had told us in the Moral Science class. She had warned us to be good or else God will punish us. It was then that I suddenly realized that God was angry with me. This thought really scared me but I couldn’t talk about it because then I would be punished for cutting the wire and also my sister would make fun of me. After this incident I became less naughty because the thought of a blow landing from nowhere was very scary.”
“It is very rare for God to really land a blow on a small child”
“Yes. And later on I realized he did not hit me. It was just confusion on my part. Last month in my science book I learnt about electricity and wires. Suddenly I realized I had just got the shock reaching the copper wire after cutting through the plastic covering. It was not Gods blow. But now I have grown up and I have also lost touch with playing pranks. For some time I haven’t been lying and cheating fearing God’s blow and life has been easy that way. So I think I will stay like this from now on. That incident made me very honest and good. Everybody has been good to me and teachers also place their trust in me. When I say something they don’t doubt me so I can’t just let them down now. May be after all God loves me and it is his way of making me be good. It may really have been a blow from him because he must have been tired of my pranks. I have a friend in school too with whom I don’t talk very often. That is just because he is a boy and everybody makes a big fuss about a girl being friend with boy. I can’t understand why? I actually find boys more interesting than girls. They make paper boats and planes so well. They know about cars, bikes and cricket. But girls always talk about everything so silly. They don’t know anything about cricket or hockey. I am sort of forced to listen to them because I can’t get into the boy’s group where all the interesting talk is taking place. This friend of mine is not from our school but comes here sometimes. He is from some orphanage run by Christian missionaries. He comes here to the convent to meet some nuns. I really never got to know where he was from nor what was he visiting our school for. But I did not like him or may be I was jealous of this particular boy because he would come storming on his bicycle and then hoot suddenly which would make us jump out of our skins and then would laugh at us. Now who likes to be made fun of? The nuns were very good to him and they openly showered love on him which did not go down well with me”.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water.
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying.. It's raining cats and dogs.
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.. That's how canopy beds came into existence...
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ...dead ringer.
I was reading a blog from Rae where she said how difficult it was to come up with blogs often and I have to agree with her.. For me it is my past which I am sharing here most of the time. Easy huh? Yeah, it is all there ready only to be typed and posted but only thing is it takes a lot of courage for me to come out with it at times...
I have been through the troublesome transition of being an innocent child into a teen with all new developments which were tough to handle. I was sort of tomboy kind of child and once I grew up my family was very much worried that I would land in trouble. They kept telling me about the fate that awaited girls who ventured out too much etc etc.
I was frustrated and felt as though I have been taken away from all the joys of life.... and I jotted down few lines of frustration back then which I am sharing with you now...
Broken Wings
On a dark night my mother gave me birth
And brought me forth to crawl on roughened earth
Once I was in a protective, warm womb
Suddenly I found myself crying in a bright tomb
I observed with misty eyes, faces full of smiles
With a lame leg I feared walking lengthy miles
Yet I stopped wailing and stood up to face tomorrow
Now I saw those smiling eyes were dipped in sorrow
Tell me my Lord, why I had to be born
Just to thread on paths strewn with thorns?
Shall I thank you for this life which is dear?
Or can I blame you ‘O’ Lord for putting me here?
Why? Oh why am I thrown into this mess?
Scared am I, scared by this haunting selfishness
Every minute I struggle and struggle again to survive
Easy it is to be born but tough to stay alive
Do you see just because I was born lame
They play dirty games but am I to blame?
How did you offer me these sips so bitter?
Does your heart enjoy when I have to slither?
Oh! Come on now, you don’t have a heart
Or else my life wouldn’t be so tart
I am disturbed by the eyes filled with lust
I have learnt a hard way, is ‘Lie’ is a must
I tried to be good and lost my fight father
My anger, rudeness or sobs did not help either
I am being pecked by vile human vultures
Scared am I, scared of their in-hidden natures
Many of them ‘O’ Lord, of goodness wear a mask
Knowing their true nature is very tough task
I learn a lesson everyday, yet I am so ignorant
I don’t get to come up world what is important
Though unsafe, I have to move on with the clock
My fortunes or misfortunes door I have to knock
Though I have hopes, many hands hold blanket
When I smell something fishy, there is tap on my claret
I am made to bite my tongue whenever I speak the truth
The word ruthless has survived, dead is the word ruth
I served love only to get indignation as tips
Now even my smile weeps for it has lost my lips
My heart is broken. Why was it made of glass?
O God! Why didn’t you give me a heart of better class?
When I was not walking around and my family did not know that I had a fracture, they had scared me about what doctors would do, how they would tie up my leg in hot plaster etc. That had made me feel very scared of undergoing treatment. Though the doctor I met last time was very good to me I could not forget the other doctors in the village who had made my life miserable.
I started wailing loudly once inside the hospital without any warning or signs. All the hospital staff got very irritated and soon tried scaring me, cajoling me, bribing me into silence. Nothing worked. I just kept shouting at the top of my voice and who ever tried to put hand on my mouth and tried to shut it up got bitten by me. My aunt was bitten twice and my mom once.
I was taken into a room where they were supposed to put my leg under plaster and that room scared me more than ever. The head nurse told them to put me on the bed and walk out. My mother and aunt were just relieved to get away from me. The nurse held me down tightly and they both just walked away closing the door behind them. I kept wailing at the top of my voice and the nurse just kept beating the drum on the table to make a song out of my wailing. Soon I realized that my wailing was not working with this tough lady and was thinking about a different plan to escape the hot plaster and torture. It was then the doctor (Dr.Ballal) walked in.
I was scared stiff. I suddenly stopped wailing and became very silent. I did not have enough guts to try out anything now. I really started to cry slowly. The doctor asked me, “Why is a brave little girl like you crying?” “Please don’t torture me; please don’t put hot plaster on my leg. I am really having very bad pain in my leg. I am not brave, I am so scared.. sob sob sniff sniffsob”
“Who said I am going to put hot plaster and torture you?”
“My mother and all the people in my house said that”
“Wait a minute, I will call them here”
He called them both in and scolded them for putting fear about the doctors and hospitals in little children which made the doctors look like villains and also the kids went through so much of a terrible trauma in the hospital which was not good for them. He made them tell me the reason why they had told all the lies to scare me and console me before he continued with the treatment. My poor mother and aunt were in very sticky situation there. They had to tell me that they had lied to scare me.
Anyway, within 15 minutes they were out, I was quite and the doctor came in. He was very kind and nice to me. He felt a lot of pity for the girl who had been made to suffer with a fracture on her leg (which already had an untreated club foot on it) for quite some time. He was angry with my mother for not trying to correct the club foot with a surgery. In short I felt the doctor was on my side.
When he brought the plaster near me, I was very scared and he could sense the fear.
“Don’t be afraid, I will allow you to touch and feel it before I wrap your leg in the cast. You can make sure it will not burn you”.
And he allowed me to touch few things he had kept there. The nurse was not very happy with the way the doctor was treating me. So I decided that she was not on my side. He also allowed me to cut few strips of tapes and I think I saw the nurse giving out smokes like a chimney. He told me to study hard and become a doctor like him and help children. He kept talking to me and I never knew when he finished with the cast. My whole leg was covered in white cast. It started from my toes and ran up to my upper thigh. Now I could not hop around anymore on one leg. Someone had to carry me. At home taking care of me became a big burden. I refused to sit in the same spot for more than 30 minutes. Every time they had to run around to find a strong person to carry me from one place to another.
I fell down twice and got a lines of fracture on my cast. Once I tried to scratch an itchy spot with a broom stick and got a wound inside the cast. All these created a lot of worries, chaos and invited a tirade of curses for me. Somehow I was very sure the curses would not affect me in any way. Once my sister was swinging with me quite fast when the big swing broke and my cast almost broke. My aunt scolded my sister for bringing more trouble (where as she was trying to help me a bit) which bothered her very much.She started crying and went out of the house. She was not to be seen anywhere for 3 hours after which few fishermen brought her home.
My mother was aghast to learn that she was walking into the sea because she was fed up of life. The fishermen had seen her and brought her home.
Somehow the people at home remained sane between two of us.
Soon it was time for another trip to doctor for the removal of my cast. My aunt told my mom to make sure that the person who carried me did not have any hairs in his ears.
Thus ended my adventure in Byndoor though I lived there for some more time I could not venture out of the house. For three months I was bed ridden. I started learning Kannada language and reading books. By the end of three months I was reading news paper. I would add some spice and narrate the events to my mother and her family. So the fracture had not been a very bad event after all. It honed my reading skills. Also after the incident I was more into reading and less into physical activities. I became silent because I could not read and talk at the same time. Having found a way to shut me up people found lots of interesting books for me to read.
When we went to remove the cast the doctor was very happy with me. I was not wailing or crying but instead I said “Hello Sir, how are you? ”. just like the children in my books do. “ My my.. who do we have here. Is this the same girl who was scared of me last time?”I could clearly see that he was very pleased with me. I told him about the books I have been reading. I also confessed to him that I trust doctors and I am sure they do not hurt people. He was quite amazed with the change that had come over me and also surprised to know that I could read books at such a young age. He felt very proud to have been a part of the change in my attitude towards doctors. He gave me two comics which was the first ever comic book I ever saw. I loved the pictures in the book and it was easy to understand and read.
One look at my leg and he ( Dr. Agadi) exclaimed “Oh God! What have you done to this poor girl? This definitely looks like a multiple major fracture to me. Lets get an X-ray done fast.”
That scared me a lot. I did not know what an x-ray was and what it would do to me. So I began to wail.
“Why are you crying?” asked the doctor.
“I am scared of x-rays”
“It is just a photograph of your bones baby. Nothing else. Don’t worry. I know you are in pain and I will take care not to touch your legs at all”.
Now this was something interesting. I just wanted to have a look at the bones in my leg. I was very curious now. My curiosity made me quite and I could hear loudly the sigh of relief ringing around me.
So we entered a dark room. All the people accompanying me were made to stand outside. I felt important jumping in on my one good leg, leaving them behind worried and ashamed. Yeah, they were ashamed because the doctor had not minced words. He had torrents of advice showered on them.
It was all over before I knew what was going on. Then we had to wait for some time and I dozed off and fell asleep. The doctor got the report very soon and it was clear that the bone of my leg had not only been fractured but because of my effort in putting weight on it, it had got protruded outwards with chips on the sides.
This is how it looked in the x-ray.
The doctor was aghast that they had tried to make me walk on my leg. He felt very sorry for me and told my mother that he was not able to handle the case. They will have to consult an orthopedic specialist in a bigger town called Mangalore. He also added that they have been very cruel to me and the pain with such a fracture left uncared for could be quite bad. He also added that they should somehow make it up to me now by being very nice until the cast is put because they were responsible for what has happened to me in many ways. He was very smart and efficient doctor but he also made a mistake there by telling all these in front of me. He spoke in Kannada. He must have either thought that I did not know the language or he was trying to extract some revenge on the people who were cruel to a small girl who looked quite innocent to him. It is still not clear to me.
Now my mommy and aunt were in tears and were fussing over me a lot. They gave me some apples, chocolates and ice-cream.
We got back into the taxi to drive back home. I was very silent. They thought I must have got scared. The truth - I was planning how to take advantage of the situation I was in. The doctor’s words of “be nice to that poor girl now” kept ringing in my mind.
After some time they must have got worried as to why I was not talking and made a mistake of asking me
“Do you want something Fari?”
“Yes! I want to know why uncle has such big hairs in his ears”.
The driver burst out so loud that he lost control of the car and narrowly escaped the lorry which was coming towards us. There were lots of shouts from my Mother and aunt. Then they got angry with the driver and asked him whether he was planning of killing us all.
All he did was laugh and keep quite for sometime and then start laughing all over again shaking like a jelly to the irritation of my mother and aunt.
“Please tell me mommy. Why does he have such big hairs in his ears?”
My mother and aunt looked at each other as if to search for some answer. My aunt thought of an answer “Let us ask your uncle when we get back to Byndoor”.
“OK”
My mother squealed “What are you saying there stupid woman? You don’t want her to walk in there and immediately start pestering us to ask him why he has hairs in his ears when all will be standing there to hear the report”.
“Please find some answer or I will go crazy now”
“Who can answer such questions?”
They kept arguing between themselves and I wondered how stupid both of them were. If they had asked me something similar I would have found some answer by now. Anyway the driver came to their rescue
“Baby. Listen, I will tell you why he has hairs in his ears”.
“How do you know that?”
“I was there when it happened”
“Ok, see I knew something had happened. Was God involved in it?”
“In a way yes. His mother wanted him to use tooth pick after eating meat and keep his teeth clean and safe. He agreed with that and did it but he also played pranks on her. He would always hide them and make her search for it when she was busy doing some work. One day she got very angry. Very very angry. She cursed him that may God grow toothpicks in his ears. And there big hairs sprouted from his ears. After that whenever he asked his mother where the toothpicks were she would tell him to find it in his ears. That is it”
“You mean he uses them like toothpicks?”
“You have not seen that yet? He does and it is something you should watch. He just plucks a hair from his ear and clean his teeth”.
I did not believe him but was happy to have an answer. I don’t know why my mother and aunt did not hug and give him a big kiss for finding an answer for them. We came back home and everyone told everyone that THEY knew something was wrong with me and everyone blamed everyone for not listening to THEM. My sister was in tears because she was made to hurt me by lying to me about the crows nest and I got a string of apologies from her.
After a few days I was taken to Mangalore.
I was tired and drowsy for most part of the trip and slept a lot. It was 7 hours journey. I was given a lot of favorite food to eat for past three days. I was forgiven for most of things I did around the house and for some reason being naughty became boring …I became a quite girl waiting for the Mangalore trip to happen so that the pain in leg could finally be rid of but I was also very scared inside. No one knew the turmoil going on in me..
The fear of being hunted did not keep us confined to our home for long. Soon we were back in fresh air again.
We caught fish from small brooks and put them in the well. Oh!! It was so much of fun and for once in my life I was not studying anything….
They had a big swing there inside the house and we enjoyed it a lot. But nothing good or bad can last forever. So finally the laughter was wiped off my face. My vacation ended in a tragedy when I fell down from a chair and fractured my leg. The main problem was that the doctor who checked out with my leg did not diagnose it to be fracture but said some nerve or muscle must have strained causing the pain.He gave my mother some ointment to be applied where it hurt me. I had to go through hell when they applied the ointment.
I could not put down my leg and walk because of the shooting pain. I could neither lay on the bed the whole day and so started jumping around on my left leg which was easy as it was strong enough to substitute for other club footed leg which was rarely used for standing on.
After a week they consulted the doctor again and he said that I was just being scared to walk after the fall and they should somehow make me walk again without fussing over me all the time. Saying so he gave more medicines now to be taken orally and for application. There was bluish color appearing on my leg and that had got my mother worried.So now they tried to force me to walk which had me wailing loud enough to get few neighbors rushing in to find out what was going on. The pain was so bad that I was willing to scratch, bite and fully swallow anyone who dared to touch my leg. They gave up the idea of force and decided to fool me. One day my sister told me that if I would walk then she would show me a crow’s nest with a golden stick hidden in it which she had found. I was very much tempted and tried to put weight on my leg which sent shooting pain up to my head and I almost fainted. I felt something cracking in my leg then. After that I became very careful with my leg and would never put it down for any reason nor would I allow anyone to touch it. The next day I went to the garden in front of the house to pick up flowers jumping around on one leg. My mother’s grandfather saw me then and approached me with a big cane. He knew I was scared of him and tried to make me walk properly threatening me with the cane. He had me cornered in the garden and out of fear and anger I started howling loudly. My mother rushed out but waited to see if I would walk. Finally being scared to death I put my leg down and again felt the shooting pain and decided not to try it .. so I picked it back up quickly though not before finding my self in pain and now I was very wild. Wild enough to snatch the cane which was bigger than me and beat the old man but before I could even move my mother rushed and stopped her grandfather. May be she realized this was not going to end in a good way. She decided that something must be really wrong with me and I should be taken to the nearby town for a better diagnosis. I refused to eat anything or even talk to anyone until they promised not to hurt my leg anymore. So the next day they engaged a taxi to take me to Kundapura.Someone had to carry me all the way to the road and so my father’s brother-in-law was called in to carry me. My dad was in Bangalore because he had limited days of leave from the place of work. I was glad with the arrangement because I thought this was going to end my awful experience. Being my normal self I started observing the man who was carrying me and found that he had long hairs sticking out of his ears. That amazed me a lot. I had to know what made him have hairs in his ears when no one else had it. So as soon as I was in taxi I asked my mother
“Mommy, why does that uncle have so many big hairs in his ears?”
“How can I answer that question?”
“Why can’t you answer a simple question like that?”
“God made him like that”
“Why did God make only Him like that?”
“Not only him. There are other people who have hairs in their ears”
“Then why have we not seen them?”
“I have seen them”
“Then please Mommy name them for me”
“My God!! Will you please keep quite, the driver is losing his concentration and we will be in an accident if you go on like this”
“But I want to know why that uncle has hairs in his ears”
“Why do you want to know that now? He has hairs in ears and that is it. Why should you bother about it?”
“What do I do if it is bothering me and I want to know why there are hairs in his ears?”
“Wow!! Look at the river my darling.. can you see the boat?”
“Yes.. I can see the boat and why is that man carrying a stick in his hand?”
“That is to push the boat ahead”
I was silent for some more time watching out the things that were passing by. Soon we came to a monotonous village and suddenly I remembered that I still did not know why uncle had so many big hairs in his ears. So I started to ask my Mommy again. It went on for some time and my mother got a big head ache and she vomited. My aunt said she was getting a headache and was feeling sick too and if I did not shut up they would just turn back and go home. Now that bothered me because I wanted the pain in my leg to go away but that meant I would be ignorant of why hairs were growing out my uncle’s ears. I decided to shut up because both my Mom and Aunt looked annoyed. They never could hear anything repeated more often…
So I was left wondering and worrying as to why uncle had big hairs in his ears. We reached the town Kundapura and there I met a very pleasant doctor named B.M. Agadi. I will always remember him just because he was responsible for putting me out of very severe pain. It is easy to remember good things in life. As easy as remembering the bad things that hurt us.
( PS: The uncle with hair in ear is my Father in Law.)
I am reproducing the Excerpts from "The power of Positive Thinking" By Norman Vincent Peale of Canada. Hope you would like it.
Don't be a "Hold-out", Go all out. Do this, and life will not hold out on you.
A famous trapeze artiste was instructing his students how to perform on the high trapeze bar. Finally, having given full explanations and instruction in this skill, he told them to demonstrate their ability.
One student, looking up at the insecure perch from which he must perform, was suddenly filled with fear. He froze completely. He had terrifying vision of himself falling to the ground. He counldn't move a muscle, so deep was his fright. "I can't do it! I can't do it!" He gasped.
The instructor put his arm around the boy's shoulder and said: "Son, you can do it, and I will tell you how." Then he made a statement which is of inestimable importance. It is one of the wisest remarks I have ever heard. He said: "Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow."
Heart is the symbol of creative activity. Fire the heart with where you want to be. Get it so deeply fixed in your unconscious that you will not take no for an answer, then your entire personality will follow where your heart leads. "Throw your heart over the bar" means to throw your faith over your difficulty, throw yur affirmation over your barrier, throw your visualisation over your obstacles. In other words, throw the spiritual essence of you over the bar and your material self will follow in the victory groove thus pioneered by your faith-inspired mind. Expect the best, never the worst, and you will attain your heart's desire. It is what is in the heart of you, either good or bad, strong or weak, that finally comes to you. Emerson said "Beware of what you want for you will get it."
That was one of those excerpts that has inspired me a lot. When I was going through my treatment for breast cancer my doctor told me that it will be mostly my will power to survive against cancer because the medicines will not be able to help if my will to survive is not strong. He told me to keep this unofficial because he could not prove it. Honestly I believed him and I did follow his advice.. could that be one of the reason why I am here blogging today?
