I was dreading the the time I'd be shown my mother's innards after the operation. The story goes back to an ancient time in history, when I was in school. I was a natural genius at life science. And at the same time I was an admirer of pure science. I wanted to take maths additional in class IX. I missed it by 4 marks (don't think that the percentage required was high - only 60%, I managed 56). How I cried, howled in the school playground. Some arbitrary mom came running to me, because my dad miserably failed in reigning in my emotions (my mom has never accompanied me during the results - she's too nervous to handle the tension and assumes the worst at the very first go). Well, amid the hullabaloo I didn't even realize that I have again scored a 96% in Life Science but my class teacher did. She mandated that I take up biology as my additional subject and my father simply obeyed.
Cut shot - 2 years later. My dad is almost sure I am going to be a doctor i. e. I am going to take up biology as my 4th subject at the +2 level as well. Even I am pretty sure that if I sit for the medical joint entrance examination nobody can stop me from getting a good enough qualifying rank. And then nothing will be in my control - I have to study medicine and give up my ambition of becoming an engineer. Why do I have this ambition in the first place? Because my father's an engineer, I have always wanted to be like him. So to fulfill my dream I kill my dad's dream. I go and opt for statistics as my 4th subject. Just couldn't take the risk of becoming a doctor - I am extremely good at Chemistry too. But I am a lazy person and I hate blood. My dad's confused and hurt. He doesn't speak to me for 4 days.
Cut shot - present day. Above all other tensions regarding the surgery, the challenges of running a home for the first time, the car having been hit and sporting a broken bumper, and office work getting more complicated and irritating than ever...nothing worries me more than this custom of demonstrating the operated body parts. I will feel nauseated - must avoid it somehow - otherwise I shall be sick for days. I can't afford to be sick. Ok, decision taken, I will be the last to go after the OT door opens. By then they might have been done with the custom.
As is my tendency, and as fate would have it, I was the first to rush up the stairs, when they called us. I have become like that. I nomore run from the problem. I face it. I accept it. And there she was - the OT nurse. Explaining each part. The uterus, the fallopian tubes, the ovaries. Having drawn the images a hundred times (that was another problem, I drew extremely well, once I drew a toad so well that I kept staring at it for the rest of the exam - I always finished my Life Science paper in half the allotted time - it didn't help that I had watched The Frog Prince recently and was feeling rather romantic)...But, having had no practical experience, it was the size that surprised me. Are ovaries so tiny? Even the uterus - looks quite like the female version of an average sized penis. How on earth did I reside there in my formative months?
And there was no nausea, no reaction at all except such critical researcher like observations. I kept wondering - have I done a mistake then? Could I be successful as a doctor? Was it just prejudice without any foundation? Just a child's whim made me pursue something which was not my core strength? Well I haven't been a bad engineer. But that's usual for a performer. A good person having his heart at the right place usually finds a way to do all random things that he comes across in his life time. Should have a connection with his passion - computers in my case. But that is not the point.
Well, as the fact goes, I am currently a "not even properly employed" engineer. Mom's barely able to sit up - probably a long way from resuming her usual life. I am dog tired managing my office and the kitchen. The car is going to make me poorer by few thousand bucks, but from whatever research I have been able to do, claiming insurance would still be a mistake. Amid all this - cut shot again.
The phone rings. My friend from school, who's also my neighbor and the organizer for local cultural events.
"Tagore's birthday celebrations this year..."
"No re, my mom's getting released that day from the nursing home..."
"No it's not on the 9th, it is on the 15th. And I was hoping you'd be the MC..."
Last year I had recited a poem - and it went rather well (once again - my dad is excellent at recitation, I just followed his foot steps). Everyone in the locality became my friend and well wisher. People congratulated me while I was getting down from the dais. That was one high point in my life. But MC? It's not that I haven't organized events...I had once conducted an Antakshari in my first MNC. One Diwali celebration and a medley song rendering was conceptualized by me in my 2nd MNC. But MC of an event?
"OK... Let's do it then... ", I said while rolling my eyes and punching myself.
Just live, little girl, so long as you can...
Don't you get wet, glide like a swan.
In everything you do, add a bit of fun,
Evanescent is life, feel it before it's gone.
Once again rolling my eyes - well good night then :)
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